Re: Join tab delimiter

[Eric Blake]

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According to Gorodilov Alexey on 3/28/2009 5:36 AM:
> I try
> join '\t' file1 file2

Are you sure that's what you typed?  When I tried I got "extra operand
`file2'".  But reading between the lines, it looks like you were trying to
use -t.  When reporting problems, it is essential to make it easy for
others to reproduce what you did, by copying and pasting from your
terminal rather than retyping.

> but join writes, that
> join: illegal tab character specification

It looks like you are using an older version of coreutils, since the
output message now mentions "multi-character tab `\\t'" rather than
"illegal tab character" (after all, there is no law prohibiting what you
attempted).  Consider upgrading; the latest stable version is 7.1, with
7.2 due any day now.

Meanwhile, the trick is to use a literal tab on your command line.  One
way is to use ctrl-v followed by tab, although that's hard to render in
email.  Or, if you use bash, you could try:

$ join -t $'\t' file1 file2

Or there's even this more portable alternative (although it costs a fork):
$ join -t `printf '\t'` file1 file2

And while it would be possible for join to recognize backslash escape
sequences as a single join character, rather than the current complaint,
no one has written a patch to do that.

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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