[9fans] Joining multicolumn files

[hugo rivera <uair00@gmail.com>]

Hi,
I've always joined multiple column files in plan 9 using pr(1).
Say you have file A:
columnA1 columnA2 columnA3
and file B:
columnB1 columnB2 columnB3
so, using pr(1), I get another file C:
columnA1 columnA2 columnA3 columnB1 columnB2 columnB3

This worked fine until now: I have a number of files with a number of
columns on each (4-5 columns in 4 files). So, when I try to join the
columns in these files on a single file using pr(1), the resulting
output contains some of the columns, but the columns further to the
right are deleted partially or completely. I've changed some of the
parameters, like setting -w 200, but the output is still incomplete
and has missing columns, plus the ones existing have more spaces
between them. I know that pr(1) is a formatting utility, but is there
a better way to do this? maybe awk? (I have no clue on how to do this
with awk). On linux there is a paste(1) command that does exactly what
I need just join the columns with out caring the line size or spacing.
Saludos
--
Hugo