If a string has a blank within it, can I still use tsort on the string?
up vote
2
down vote
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coreutils manual says
tsort reads its input as pairs of strings, separated by blanks, indicating a partial ordering.
If a string has a blank within it, according to the manual, I can't use tsort on it and other strings. How can I still use tsort on the string and other strings? Thanks.
coreutils tsort
asked 2 days ago
Tim
1
add a comment |
up vote
2
down vote
favorite
coreutils manual says
tsort reads its input as pairs of strings, separated by blanks, indicating a partial ordering.
If a string has a blank within it, according to the manual, I can't use tsort on it and other strings. How can I still use tsort on the string and other strings? Thanks.
coreutils tsort
asked 2 days ago
Tim
1
1
What happened when you tried?
– Jeff Schaller
2 days ago
" I'm confused by your question"
– Tim
2 days ago
I mean, the man page says that it delimits the inputs by blanks, and so I might be curious to try running it with various inputs, such asa b cor"a b" cand see what happened. If I was then confused about what happened, I'd propose a question that showed the documentation, my understanding of it, the inputs I tried, the output I got, and what output I expected. That's why I have downvoted this question. Does that clarify my "what happened when you tried?" question?
– Jeff Schaller
2 days ago
1
If I think a question is self clear without those hassles, I won't go that way.
– Tim
2 days ago
add a comment |
up vote
2
down vote
favorite
up vote
2
down vote
favorite
coreutils manual says
tsort reads its input as pairs of strings, separated by blanks, indicating a partial ordering.
If a string has a blank within it, according to the manual, I can't use tsort on it and other strings. How can I still use tsort on the string and other strings? Thanks.
coreutils tsort
asked 2 days ago
Tim
1
coreutils manual says
tsort reads its input as pairs of strings, separated by blanks, indicating a partial ordering.
If a string has a blank within it, according to the manual, I can't use tsort on it and other strings. How can I still use tsort on the string and other strings? Thanks.
coreutils tsort
coreutils tsort
asked 2 days ago
Tim
1
asked 2 days ago
Tim
1
edited 2 days ago
asked 2 days ago
Tim
1
asked 2 days ago
Tim
1
asked 2 days ago
Tim
1
1
1
What happened when you tried?
– Jeff Schaller
2 days ago
" I'm confused by your question"
– Tim
2 days ago
I mean, the man page says that it delimits the inputs by blanks, and so I might be curious to try running it with various inputs, such asa b cor"a b" cand see what happened. If I was then confused about what happened, I'd propose a question that showed the documentation, my understanding of it, the inputs I tried, the output I got, and what output I expected. That's why I have downvoted this question. Does that clarify my "what happened when you tried?" question?
– Jeff Schaller
2 days ago
1
If I think a question is self clear without those hassles, I won't go that way.
– Tim
2 days ago
add a comment |
1
What happened when you tried?
– Jeff Schaller
2 days ago
" I'm confused by your question"
– Tim
2 days ago
I mean, the man page says that it delimits the inputs by blanks, and so I might be curious to try running it with various inputs, such asa b cor"a b" cand see what happened. If I was then confused about what happened, I'd propose a question that showed the documentation, my understanding of it, the inputs I tried, the output I got, and what output I expected. That's why I have downvoted this question. Does that clarify my "what happened when you tried?" question?
– Jeff Schaller
2 days ago
1
If I think a question is self clear without those hassles, I won't go that way.
– Tim
2 days ago
1
1
What happened when you tried?
– Jeff Schaller
2 days ago
What happened when you tried?
– Jeff Schaller
2 days ago
" I'm confused by your question"
– Tim
2 days ago
" I'm confused by your question"
– Tim
2 days ago
I mean, the man page says that it delimits the inputs by blanks, and so I might be curious to try running it with various inputs, such as
a b c or "a b" c and see what happened. If I was then confused about what happened, I'd propose a question that showed the documentation, my understanding of it, the inputs I tried, the output I got, and what output I expected. That's why I have downvoted this question. Does that clarify my "what happened when you tried?" question?– Jeff Schaller
2 days ago
I mean, the man page says that it delimits the inputs by blanks, and so I might be curious to try running it with various inputs, such as
a b c or "a b" c and see what happened. If I was then confused about what happened, I'd propose a question that showed the documentation, my understanding of it, the inputs I tried, the output I got, and what output I expected. That's why I have downvoted this question. Does that clarify my "what happened when you tried?" question?– Jeff Schaller
2 days ago
1
1
If I think a question is self clear without those hassles, I won't go that way.
– Tim
2 days ago
If I think a question is self clear without those hassles, I won't go that way.
– Tim
2 days ago
add a comment |
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
up vote
5
down vote
accepted
You can't use tsort directly if some of your input strings contain whitespace.
You can check the source, you'll see the delimiters are hardcoded to space, tab and newline and there's no option to change them.
If you want to use tsort on a data set where words may contain whitespace, my recommendation would be to pre-process the data set to encode whitespace as a non-blank character (or sequence of non-blank characters), then run tsort on it and finally post-process the final output to decode it back into the original whitespace.
You can probably use sed for the pre- and post-processing steps. Which character to use to encode whitespace depends on your data set, if there are other characters that are invalid (e.g. # or @, $ or ), maybe you can simply use them directly. Otherwise, you might want to consider a two character encoding (e.g. encode space as s) and include a way to encode the quoting character itself (e.g. \ to encode a single backspace.)
answered 2 days ago
Filipe Brandenburger
6,1041625
1
For single character encodings,tris likely to be easier.
– D. Ben Knoble
2 days ago
Thanks. Filipe and @D.BenKnoble: if a string has a blank within it, and the string separator is a blank, can you "pre-process the data set to encode whitespace as a non-blank character" using some program without manual distinguish a blank between within-a-string and separating-two-strings cases?
– Tim
yesterday
@Tim It depends on your specific case... If you have one entry per line (one pair using two consecutive lines) then it's safe to replace spaces with another character, leaving newlines unchanged... Without knowing the specifics of what you're trying to accomplish, it's hard to say whether you can automatically distinguish the cases after assembling the file, or if you need to handle them beforehand...
– Filipe Brandenburger
yesterday
add a comment |
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
5
down vote
accepted
You can't use tsort directly if some of your input strings contain whitespace.
You can check the source, you'll see the delimiters are hardcoded to space, tab and newline and there's no option to change them.
If you want to use tsort on a data set where words may contain whitespace, my recommendation would be to pre-process the data set to encode whitespace as a non-blank character (or sequence of non-blank characters), then run tsort on it and finally post-process the final output to decode it back into the original whitespace.
You can probably use sed for the pre- and post-processing steps. Which character to use to encode whitespace depends on your data set, if there are other characters that are invalid (e.g. # or @, $ or ), maybe you can simply use them directly. Otherwise, you might want to consider a two character encoding (e.g. encode space as s) and include a way to encode the quoting character itself (e.g. \ to encode a single backspace.)
answered 2 days ago
Filipe Brandenburger
6,1041625
1
For single character encodings,tris likely to be easier.
– D. Ben Knoble
2 days ago
Thanks. Filipe and @D.BenKnoble: if a string has a blank within it, and the string separator is a blank, can you "pre-process the data set to encode whitespace as a non-blank character" using some program without manual distinguish a blank between within-a-string and separating-two-strings cases?
– Tim
yesterday
@Tim It depends on your specific case... If you have one entry per line (one pair using two consecutive lines) then it's safe to replace spaces with another character, leaving newlines unchanged... Without knowing the specifics of what you're trying to accomplish, it's hard to say whether you can automatically distinguish the cases after assembling the file, or if you need to handle them beforehand...
– Filipe Brandenburger
yesterday
add a comment |
up vote
5
down vote
accepted
You can't use tsort directly if some of your input strings contain whitespace.
You can check the source, you'll see the delimiters are hardcoded to space, tab and newline and there's no option to change them.
If you want to use tsort on a data set where words may contain whitespace, my recommendation would be to pre-process the data set to encode whitespace as a non-blank character (or sequence of non-blank characters), then run tsort on it and finally post-process the final output to decode it back into the original whitespace.
You can probably use sed for the pre- and post-processing steps. Which character to use to encode whitespace depends on your data set, if there are other characters that are invalid (e.g. # or @, $ or ), maybe you can simply use them directly. Otherwise, you might want to consider a two character encoding (e.g. encode space as s) and include a way to encode the quoting character itself (e.g. \ to encode a single backspace.)
answered 2 days ago
Filipe Brandenburger
6,1041625
1
For single character encodings,tris likely to be easier.
– D. Ben Knoble
2 days ago
Thanks. Filipe and @D.BenKnoble: if a string has a blank within it, and the string separator is a blank, can you "pre-process the data set to encode whitespace as a non-blank character" using some program without manual distinguish a blank between within-a-string and separating-two-strings cases?
– Tim
yesterday
@Tim It depends on your specific case... If you have one entry per line (one pair using two consecutive lines) then it's safe to replace spaces with another character, leaving newlines unchanged... Without knowing the specifics of what you're trying to accomplish, it's hard to say whether you can automatically distinguish the cases after assembling the file, or if you need to handle them beforehand...
– Filipe Brandenburger
yesterday
add a comment |
up vote
5
down vote
accepted
up vote
5
down vote
accepted
You can't use tsort directly if some of your input strings contain whitespace.
You can check the source, you'll see the delimiters are hardcoded to space, tab and newline and there's no option to change them.
If you want to use tsort on a data set where words may contain whitespace, my recommendation would be to pre-process the data set to encode whitespace as a non-blank character (or sequence of non-blank characters), then run tsort on it and finally post-process the final output to decode it back into the original whitespace.
You can probably use sed for the pre- and post-processing steps. Which character to use to encode whitespace depends on your data set, if there are other characters that are invalid (e.g. # or @, $ or ), maybe you can simply use them directly. Otherwise, you might want to consider a two character encoding (e.g. encode space as s) and include a way to encode the quoting character itself (e.g. \ to encode a single backspace.)
answered 2 days ago
Filipe Brandenburger
6,1041625
You can't use tsort directly if some of your input strings contain whitespace.
You can check the source, you'll see the delimiters are hardcoded to space, tab and newline and there's no option to change them.
If you want to use tsort on a data set where words may contain whitespace, my recommendation would be to pre-process the data set to encode whitespace as a non-blank character (or sequence of non-blank characters), then run tsort on it and finally post-process the final output to decode it back into the original whitespace.
You can probably use sed for the pre- and post-processing steps. Which character to use to encode whitespace depends on your data set, if there are other characters that are invalid (e.g. # or @, $ or ), maybe you can simply use them directly. Otherwise, you might want to consider a two character encoding (e.g. encode space as s) and include a way to encode the quoting character itself (e.g. \ to encode a single backspace.)
answered 2 days ago
Filipe Brandenburger
6,1041625
answered 2 days ago
Filipe Brandenburger
6,1041625
answered 2 days ago
Filipe Brandenburger
6,1041625
answered 2 days ago
Filipe Brandenburger
6,1041625
6,1041625
1
For single character encodings,tris likely to be easier.
– D. Ben Knoble
2 days ago
Thanks. Filipe and @D.BenKnoble: if a string has a blank within it, and the string separator is a blank, can you "pre-process the data set to encode whitespace as a non-blank character" using some program without manual distinguish a blank between within-a-string and separating-two-strings cases?
– Tim
yesterday
@Tim It depends on your specific case... If you have one entry per line (one pair using two consecutive lines) then it's safe to replace spaces with another character, leaving newlines unchanged... Without knowing the specifics of what you're trying to accomplish, it's hard to say whether you can automatically distinguish the cases after assembling the file, or if you need to handle them beforehand...
– Filipe Brandenburger
yesterday
add a comment |
1
For single character encodings,tris likely to be easier.
– D. Ben Knoble
2 days ago
Thanks. Filipe and @D.BenKnoble: if a string has a blank within it, and the string separator is a blank, can you "pre-process the data set to encode whitespace as a non-blank character" using some program without manual distinguish a blank between within-a-string and separating-two-strings cases?
– Tim
yesterday
@Tim It depends on your specific case... If you have one entry per line (one pair using two consecutive lines) then it's safe to replace spaces with another character, leaving newlines unchanged... Without knowing the specifics of what you're trying to accomplish, it's hard to say whether you can automatically distinguish the cases after assembling the file, or if you need to handle them beforehand...
– Filipe Brandenburger
yesterday
1
1
For single character encodings,
tr is likely to be easier.– D. Ben Knoble
2 days ago
For single character encodings,
tr is likely to be easier.– D. Ben Knoble
2 days ago
Thanks. Filipe and @D.BenKnoble: if a string has a blank within it, and the string separator is a blank, can you "pre-process the data set to encode whitespace as a non-blank character" using some program without manual distinguish a blank between within-a-string and separating-two-strings cases?
– Tim
yesterday
Thanks. Filipe and @D.BenKnoble: if a string has a blank within it, and the string separator is a blank, can you "pre-process the data set to encode whitespace as a non-blank character" using some program without manual distinguish a blank between within-a-string and separating-two-strings cases?
– Tim
yesterday
@Tim It depends on your specific case... If you have one entry per line (one pair using two consecutive lines) then it's safe to replace spaces with another character, leaving newlines unchanged... Without knowing the specifics of what you're trying to accomplish, it's hard to say whether you can automatically distinguish the cases after assembling the file, or if you need to handle them beforehand...
– Filipe Brandenburger
yesterday
@Tim It depends on your specific case... If you have one entry per line (one pair using two consecutive lines) then it's safe to replace spaces with another character, leaving newlines unchanged... Without knowing the specifics of what you're trying to accomplish, it's hard to say whether you can automatically distinguish the cases after assembling the file, or if you need to handle them beforehand...
– Filipe Brandenburger
yesterday
add a comment |
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1
What happened when you tried?
– Jeff Schaller
2 days ago
" I'm confused by your question"
– Tim
2 days ago
I mean, the man page says that it delimits the inputs by blanks, and so I might be curious to try running it with various inputs, such as
a b cor"a b" cand see what happened. If I was then confused about what happened, I'd propose a question that showed the documentation, my understanding of it, the inputs I tried, the output I got, and what output I expected. That's why I have downvoted this question. Does that clarify my "what happened when you tried?" question?– Jeff Schaller
2 days ago
1
If I think a question is self clear without those hassles, I won't go that way.
– Tim
2 days ago