ABUT(1)

NAME
abut - formatted printing of corresponding lines from files

SYNOPSIS
abut [-cn] [-f format] [-] file1 file2 ...

DESCRIPTION
abut makes a list of files with N lines into one file with N lines by printing all the first lines of those files on one line, then the second lines, and so on, until all the lines from the longest file have been printed (but see the -c option). abut reads from its file arguments in the order they appear in the call to abut and prints to the standard output. As a special case, the file name "-" is used as the standard input. Any white space at the end of lines is removed, but at least one space between fields from different files is guaranteed.

OPTIONS
[c] Cycle through lines of short files until longest is exhausted. abut Continue printing until all files have been exhausted once. Files with fewer lines than the longest will be rewound and printed again. The standard input cannot be recycled. [f format] Print fields in the specified format. Positive integers specify the field width. Negative integers imply a left-justified field. The default printing format is to put a tab between corresponding lines of separate files. [n] All output lines are numbered beginning with 1.

EXAMPLE
abut is often used to create input files to anova.
File1	File2	Data		abut -nc File1 File2 Data
large	easy	12		1	large	easy	12
small	easy	23		2	small	easy	23
	hard	34		3	large	hard	34
	hard	45		4	small	hard	45
		76		5	large	easy	76
		62		6	small	easy	62
		99		7	large	hard	99
		14		8	small	hard	14

LIMITS
Use the -L option to determine the program limits.