.TH paste.rdb "" "" "/rdb Command"
.PC "Paste together two or more tables"
\fBpaste.rdb \fItable1 table2 ...\fR
.PP
.II "table^paste"
.II "paste tables"
The command
.B paste.rdb
displays
.IR table1 ,
.IR table2 ,
and so on, side by side.
This is almost identical to the COHERENT command
.BR paste .
.PP
The
.B /rdb
version of
.B paste.rdb
uses the COHERENT
command
.B pr
to list the tables side by side:
.DM
	pr -m -t -s table1 table2 [...]
.DE
.PP
.B paste.rdb
differs from the command
.B jointable
in that
.B jointable
looks for matching values in key columns and writes only the
rows in which it finds a match.
.BR paste.rdb
does not care what it is pasting together.
You can get some interesting garbage with
.BR paste.rdb .
.PP
You can also do a kind of visual
.B diff
in which you can see an old and new file lined up side by side.
You could do this with two list files, but be careful, because
the output will generally not be acceptable by other
.B /rdb
programs.
.SH Example
The following commands break the table
.BR inventory :
.DM
	column Item Value < inventory > tmp1
	column Cost Amount Description < inventory > tmp2
.DE
.PP
This yields table
.BR tmp1
.DM
Item    Value
-----   -----
    1     150
    2     500
    3     400
    4     437
    5    2376
    6   13083
    7     875
.DE
.PP
.BR tmp2 :
.DM
Cost    Amount  Description   
----    ------  --------------
  50         3  rubber gloves
   5       100  test tubes
  80         5  clamps
  19        23  plates
  24        99  cleaning cloth
 147        89  bunsen burners
 175         5  scales
.DE
.PP
Now, you can use
.B paste.rdb
to put them back together:
.DM
	paste.rdb tmp1 tmp2
.DE
.PP
This writes the following onto the standard output:
.DM
Item    Value   Cost    Amount  Description   
-----   -----   ----    ------  --------------
1       150     50      3       rubber gloves
2       500     5       100     test tubes
3       400     80      5       clamps
4       437     19      23      plates
5       2376    24      99      cleaning cloth
6       13083   147     89      bunsen burners
7       875     175     5       scales
.DE
.PP
This is not an efficient way use
.BR column ;
one command could do the job, instead of two.
.BR paste.rdb ,
however, it is a good way to put tables together if
.B jointable
is inappropriate.
If you had wanted to use
.B jointable
here, you should
.B project
column
.B Item
into both tables.
.SH "See Also"
.B
column,
jointable
.R
.br
COHERENT Lexicon:
.B
diff,
paste,
pr
.R
.SH Notes
This command is named
.B paste.rdb
rather than
.BR paste ,
as in other implementations of
.BR /rdb ,
to avoid clashing with the COHERENT command
.BR paste .
.SO paste