bug#70699: Possible bug in /usr/bin/paste

[Pádraig Brady]

On 01/05/2024 15:28, Art Shelest via GNU coreutils Bug Reports wrote:
> Good morning,
>
> I am seeing an aberrant behavior from the /usr/bin/paste utility when working 
> with Windows-style CR/LF text files.
> The repro is for Mint Mate (Virginia).
>
> If I change the line endings in the first file to Unix format (LF), it works as 
> expected.
> If I change the line endings to Max (CR), it breaks even worse.
>
> $ hexdump -C letters.txt
> 00000000  61 61 09 41 41 0d 0a 62  62 09 42 42 0d 0a        |aa.AA..bb.BB..|
>
> $ cat letters.txt
> aa   AA
> bb   BB
> $ cat numbers.txt
> 1
> 2
> $ paste letters.txt numbers.txt
> aa   1A
> bb   2B
> $
>
>
> Expected:
> $ paste letters.txt numbers.txt
> aa   AA   1
> bb   BB   2
>
> Thank you.

paste(1) is treating the CR like a standard character,
and when outputting that back to the terminal it "messes up" the expected 
output.
I suggest you convert any such files to unix format before processing.

thanks,
Pádraig