Nick Cox wrote:
I would never recommend alteration of the original data file. I would
always recommend that you work on a copy. With that proviso, this route
is more complicated than using -filefilter-.
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Lest there be a misunderstanding: I wasn't advocating overwriting an
original data file (or even a working copy) with -filefilter-. I don't know
about analogous Unix commands, but have to assume that they, too, have
infile=, outfile= among their parameter lists.
We'll have to agree to disagree about relative complexity. Amicably, I
hope. I just find stopping to manually parse through -hexdump , tabulate-
output hoping that I don't overlook successive members of a list of
candidate substitutes, and then setting up -filefilter- with the winner, and
then -insheet-ing the outfile, to be a similarly complicated prospect.
Maybe it's the inherent error-proneness of manually processing parallel
lists looking for things that aren't supposed to be there in one of them
that bothered me.
Joseph Coveney
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