merging 2 files

[Richard Goerwitz]

On converting

><|FooBar			
><|blaTZ
><|GRMblE
><|WhEe

into

><|FooBar	foobar			
><|blaTZ	blatz
><|GRMblE	grmble
><|WhEe	whee

using the Perl script -

><    chop;
><    print $_, " ";
><    y/A-Z/a-z/;
><    print $_, "\n";

Rob McMahon (cudcv at warwick.ac.uk) writes:

>I know perl is wonderful, and I do use it a lot, but I can't help feeling that
>
>	tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]' < file | lam file -s " " -
>
>is easier (if you have `lam' I suppose, but there's an "if you have `perl'"
>too ...).

If we are into the right-tool-for-the-job game, let me just point out
that Icon will do the same job as well:

procedure main()
  every line := !&input
  do write(line," ",map(line))
end

This'll run about the same speed as the Perl script.

The point is that there is no reason to perversely superimpose string-
processing tasks on a diverse set of utilities, when there exist inter-
nally consistent, fast, elegant (and free) methods for solving these
same problems.

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%sophist at uchicago.bitnet
   goer at sophist.uchicago.edu         rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer