These docs are under active development and cover the v0.20 Kobicha security model.
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paste

paste joins files side by side. It takes the first line of each file and prints them on one line, then the second line of each, and so on — merging files into columns.

paste [options] [file...]

$ paste names.txt ages.txt
Ada      36
Grace    41
Linus    29

By default the merged pieces are separated by a tab. paste is the column-wise counterpart of cat, which joins files end to end.

Pasting one file at a time

Option Effect
-s, --serial Paste each file's lines onto a single line, one file at a time, instead of merging files in parallel. A file's lines become a row. 
$ paste -s -d , names.txt
Ada,Grace,Linus

Choosing the separator

Option Effect
-d, --delimiters=LIST Use the characters in LIST as separators instead of a tab. When LIST has more than one character, paste cycles through them.
-z, --zero-terminated Treat the NUL character as the line delimiter instead of newline.

paste and join

paste merges by position — line 1 with line 1, line 2 with line 2, blind to content. When you want to merge by a matching value — pairing rows that share a key — that is join.

Exit status

Code Meaning
0 Success.
1 A file could not be read, or the delimiter list was malformed.

See also