Merge content of 2 files side by side

Problem

You want to show the content of 2 files next to each other, line by line. For instance, one file contains id and the other contains names.

Solution

You can use paste to achieve this.

Suppose file1 contains names

Mark Smith
Bobby Brown
Sue Miller
Jenny Igotit

and file2 contains numbers

555-1234
555-9876
555-6743
867-5309

You can use paste like so

    # Merge with default separator: tab
    paste file1 file2
    > Mark Smith    555-1234
    > Bobby Brown    555-9876
    > Sue Miller    555-6743
    > Jenny Igotit    867-5309

    # merge with delimiter comma (,)
    paste -d, file1 file2
    > Mark Smith,555-1234
    > Bobby Brown,555-9876
    > Sue Miller,555-6743
    > Jenny Igotit,867-5309