PACKAGE |STAT Data Manipulation and Analysis, by Gary Perlman
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.
The following standard help options are supported. The program exits after displaying the help.
-L
Display limits
-O
Display options and values
-V
Display version number and date
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.
UPDATED November 2, 1985