A. Costa wrote: > % whatis combine > combine (1) - combine the lines in two files using boolean > operations > > ..."combine the lines" can imply that for two lines: > > foo > bar > > ...the 'and' result would be: > > foobar
No, it doesn't say that it concacenates lines.
> The object of the transitive verb 'combine' is left vague -- are we
> combining lines or files? Files of course.
I don't see what's so vague about "the lines in two files".
> Suggested revisions, (I couldn't decide on one):
>
> combine (1) - combine two text files using boolean operations
> combine (1) - combine text files using boolean operations
This seems to imply that it's doing an operation like:
file A OR file B
Which is not what it's doing.
> combine (1) - combine text files, line by line, using boolean
> operations
> combine (1) - combine text files using boolean operations on
> lines
> combine (1) - combine text files by line, using boolean
> operations
These are also wrong, since they over-stress the lines and imply an
operation such as:
for each line N:
line N from file A OR line N from file B
Which is also not what it's doing.
Combine operates on the basis of two sets of lines, which are takes from
two files, and it performs boolean operations on the sets of lines.
"combine the lines in two files using boolean operations" is the
clearest way I can find the explain this concisely, the rest of the man
page is there to clarify.
--
see shy jo
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