bash script simple array

Question

I have 2 files: /tmp/first.txt and /tmp/last.txt

cat /tmp/first.txt
john
adam
max

cat /tmp/last.txt
smith
moore
caviar

I want to combine the contents of these two files, something (output) like this:

john smith
adam moore
max caviar

what i've already did:

first=()
getfirst() {
    i=0
    while read line # Read a line
    do
        array[i]=$line # Put it into the array
        i=$(($i + 1))
    done < $1
}
getfirst "/tmp/first.txt"
for a in "${array[@]}"
do
        echo "$a"
done

last=()
getlast() {
    i=0
    while read line # Read a line
    do
        array[i]=$line # Put it into the array
        i=$(($i + 1))
    done < $1
}
getlast "/tmp/first.txt"
for b in "${array[@]}"
do
        echo "$b"
done

I've done some look alike (using iteration):

for x in {1..2}
do
echo $a[$x] $b[$x];
done

but the output is only:

max caviar

Answer 1

A simpler solution is using paste:

$ paste -d ' ' first.txt last.txt
john smith
adam moore
max caviar

If you don't have paste, then using arrays:

$ first=($(cat first.txt))
$ last=($(cat last.txt))
$ for ((i = 0; i < 3; ++i)); do echo ${first[$i]} ${last[$i]}; done
john smith
adam moore
max caviar