Update metadata and transcripts through end of July 2026

Refreshed episodes/hosts/comments/series from hpr.sql, and added
official HPR transcripts for the 180 episodes aired since the last
sync (hpr4516-hpr4695).

hpr_transcripts/hpr4687.txt

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+Episode: 4687
+Title: UNIX Curio #11 - Merging Files
+Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4687/hpr4687.mp3
+Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:46 (official HPR transcript)
+
+---
+
+This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4687, for 2026-07-21
+Today's show is entitled, "UNIX Curio #11 - Merging Files"
+The host is Vance and the duration is 00:11:21
+The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
+The summary is "Bringing your data together"
+Hi there, I'm Vance and welcome to Unix Curio number 11.
+This series is dedicated to exploring little known and occasionally useful, trinkets lurking
+in the dusty corners of Unix Lake operating systems.
+I frequently find myself reaching for the cut utility when rating scripts to extract
+one piece of data from a line or to select specific fields from a log file.
+While I am familiar with its counterpart, paste, I don't employ it very often because I don't
+typically need its functionality.
+This perhaps has to do with the fact that I rarely work with text files containing lists.
+For shorter lists, I usually end up using a spreadsheet and for larger ones a relational
+database.
+Both are valuable tools with their own strengths and weaknesses, but it is good to also
+know about standard utilities for working with lists.
+After uploading Unix Curio number 8, that's Hacker Public Radio episode 4657, I felt
+like maybe I had been too dismissive of the commutality in that episode and should
+talk more about tools that are useful when managing lists.
+I don't often find myself using paste, but can explain how it works.
+Briefly, it is a rough opposite of cut.
+Given multiple files as arguments, it assembles the first line from each one separated by
+tabs, then the second line and so on.
+Instead of tabs, a different delimiter can be chosen with the Hifendee as in Delta option.
+Another option is HifendS as in Sierra, which swaps rows and columns so that the content
+of each name file would appear on one line.
+While paste itself doesn't qualify as a Unix Curio in my opinion, there is one feature that
+does.
+A Hifend can be given as an argument multiple times.
+In this special case, the output is taken line by line from standard input, but is spread
+across as many columns as there are hifens.
+You can find an example of this in the show notes.
+The paste command has limitations.
+The files you give it must all be already arranged in the same order, and if any file
+is missing a value, it must have a blank line so that subsequent lines will match up correctly.
+The files do not necessarily have to be sorted alphabetically, but whatever order they
+are in has to be the same.
+Check out Hacker Public Radio episodes 962 and 4201 for some more background on the paste
+utility.
+Our second Unix Curio for today is a command called Join, which has a bit more sophistication.
+It operates on two files, which can have multiple columns, and combines them using the
+Join field.
+By default, the first column or field in each file is the Join field, and only entries
+that exist in both files are printed.
+The Hifen 1 and Hifen 2 options can be used to join on a different field, and Hifen
+O, select specific fields to be output.
+To make it so lines with missing entries also appear, you need to use the Hifen A option
+but an actual empty string with a separator won't be printed unless Hifen O is also present
+and includes the field.
+The default field separator character is one or more blanks in the current locale.
+For the POSIX locale, this means a space or a horizontal tab.
+The Hifen T option selects a different character, and also removes the treatment of multiple
+occurrences as a single separator, making it possible to have an empty field in one or
+both of the files.
+By default, a single space is used to separate fields in the output.
+If Hifen T is given, the same character is used for separating fields in both input and
+output.
+You would need to use another tool, like TR, if you wanted to have a different separator
+in the output.
+The join utility might be an improvement over paste in some cases, since the join field
+makes it a little easier to identify which entries match up across files.
+It is limited to operating only on two files, one of which can be standard input, so combining
+more than that requires either creating temporary intermediate files or chaining together
+join commands in a pipeline.
+Another requirement is that all files must already be sorted in the current locale.
+The full details of using join are a bit too involved to explain in this episode, so
+I will refer you to the show notes, for an example, and a link to the utility's documentation.
+The brief description for join is relational database operator.
+I won't dispute that, but in my view it offers far fewer capabilities than people would
+expect from today's relational databases.
+I would imagine that when most people think of those, they have structured query language
+or SQL in mind, which offers a lot more flexibility and functions to operate on data.
+However, I can see how join could be suitable for simple operations.
+Our last Unix Curio for today relates to the sort utility.
+While, as you might expect, it is well known for its ability to sort data, it has another
+feature that is more obscure.
+When used with the hyphen M as in mic option, instead of sorting the files given as arguments,
+it merges them together.
+All of the files are expected to already be sorted.
+Once combined, the list that is output will also be sorted.
+The order in which the files are named does not matter.
+It is not required for the contents of the first file to start before the second, just
+that both are sorted.
+Imagine that you organize an annual event and have a separate pre-sorted list of attendees
+e-mail addresses for each of the past three years.
+You are planning this year's event and want to send out an announcement to all of these
+people as they will probably be interested.
+The command sort, hyphen M, hyphen U, followed by the names of the three files, would spit
+out a combined list that you can use for your e-mail blast.
+Because it is likely that some people would have attended in more than one year, I included
+the hyphen U option.
+It removes any duplicate entries.
+It is probably no surprise that the sort utility appeared early on.
+It was in 1971's first edition Unix, though it didn't gain the merging functionality
+until 5th edition in 1973.
+What did come as a shock to me is that both cut and paste didn't show up until 1980 with
+system 3 and were actually preceded by join, which was in 7th edition Unix from 1979.
+I assume that at least cut would have been around far earlier, given it's usefulness
+and how firmly established it seems to be, but I suppose it just seems to have been with us forever.
+As mentioned, I don't typically manage data as text files containing lists, and I probably
+won't start using the join utility, or these features of paste and sort very much.
+But it is still useful to know that they exist and how they work.
+Hopefully this episode has taught you a bit about them.
+Thanks for listening.
+There are a few topics that I'm working on for the next Unix Curio.
+A couple of these will require more research than normal, so be advised that it might
+take more time than usual before they are uploaded.
+Keep an eye out here on Hacker Public Radio for them to appear.
+If you have an idea for topic, or want to ask a question, please comment on this episode
+on the HPR website.
+You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org.
+Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself.
+If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is.
+Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network.
+Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.