dbmerge - Man Page
merge all inputs in sorted order based on the the specified columns
Synopsis
dbmerge --input A.fsdb --input B.fsdb [-T TemporaryDirectory] [-nNrR] column [column...]
or
cat A.fsdb | dbmerge --input - --input B.fsdb [-T TemporaryDirectory] [-nNrR] column [column...]
or
dbmerge [-T TemporaryDirectory] [-nNrR] column [column...] --inputs A.fsdb [B.fsdb ...]
or
{ echo "A.fsdb"; echo "B.fsdb" } | dbmerge --xargs column [column...]
Description
Merge all provided, pre-sorted input files, producing one sorted result. Inputs can both be specified with --input
, or with --inputs
, or one can come from standard input and the other from --input
. With --xargs
, each line of standard input is a filename for input.
Inputs must have identical schemas (columns, column order, and field separators).
Unlike dbmerge2, dbmerge supports an arbitrary number of input files.
Because this program is intended to merge multiple sources, it does not default to reading from standard input. If you wish to read standard input, use - as the input source.
Also, because we deal with multiple input files, this module doesn't output anything until it's run.
dbmerge consumes a fixed amount of memory regardless of input size. It therefore buffers output on disk as necessary. (Merging is implemented a series of two-way merges and possibly an n-way merge at the end, so disk space is O(number of records).)
dbmerge will merge data in parallel, if possible. The --parallelism
option can control the degree of parallelism, if desired.
Options
General option:
- --xargs
Expect that input filenames are given, one-per-line, on standard input. (In this case, merging can start incrementally.)
- --removeinputs
Delete the source files after they have been consumed. (Defaults off, leaving the inputs in place.)
- -T TmpDir
where to put tmp files. Also uses environment variable TMPDIR, if -T is not specified. Default is /tmp.
- --parallelism N or -j N
Allow up to N merges to happen in parallel. Default is the number of CPUs in the machine.
- --endgame (or --noendgame)
Enable endgame mode, extra parallelism when finishing up. (On by default.)
Sort specification options (can be interspersed with column names):
- -r or --descending
sort in reverse order (high to low)
- -R or --ascending
sort in normal order (low to high)
- -n or --numeric
sort numerically
- -N or --lexical
sort lexicographically
This module also supports the standard fsdb options:
- -d
Enable debugging output.
- -i or --input InputSource
Read from InputSource, typically a file name, or
-
for standard input, or (if in Perl) a IO::Handle, Fsdb::IO or Fsdb::BoundedQueue objects.- -o or --output OutputDestination
Write to OutputDestination, typically a file name, or
-
for standard output, or (if in Perl) a IO::Handle, Fsdb::IO or Fsdb::BoundedQueue objects.- --autorun or --noautorun
By default, programs process automatically, but Fsdb::Filter objects in Perl do not run until you invoke the run() method. The
--(no)autorun
option controls that behavior within Perl.- --header H
Use H as the full Fsdb header, rather than reading a header from then input.
- --help
Show help.
- --man
Show full manual.
Sample Usage
Input
File a.fsdb:
#fsdb cid cname 11 numanal 10 pascal
File b.fsdb:
#fsdb cid cname 12 os 13 statistics
These two files are both sorted by cname
, and they have identical schemas.
Command
dbmerge --input a.fsdb --input b.fsdb cname
or
cat a.fsdb | dbmerge --input b.fsdb cname
Output
#fsdb cid cname 11 numanal 12 os 10 pascal 13 statistics # | dbmerge --input a.fsdb --input b.fsdb cname
See Also
dbmerge2(1), dbsort(1), Fsdb(3)
AUTHOR and COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1991-2024 by John Heidemann <johnh@isi.edu>
This program is distributed under terms of the GNU general public license, version 2. See the file COPYING with the distribution for details.
Referenced By
dbfilecat(1), dbmerge2(1), dbsort(1).