SORT-MERGE/XL General User's Guide (32650-90883)

Chapter 6 73

SORT-MERGE/XL Commands

ALTSEQ

characters, and have each followed by its corresponding upper case character:

:SORT

HP32214A.01.00 SORT/3000 THU, JUN 4, 1987, 8:35 AM

>ALTSEQ MERGE "a-z" = "A-Z"

>SHOW SEQUENCE

nul soh stx etx eot enq ack bel bs ht lf vt ff cr so si

dle dc1 dc2 dc3 dc4 nak syn etb can em sub esc fs gs rs us

sp ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . /

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?

@ [ \ ] ^ _ ` a A b B c C d D e

E f F g G h H i I j J k K l L m

M n N o O p P q Q r R s S t T u

U v V w W x X y Y z Z { | } ~ del

The six characters [, \, ], ^, _, and ‘” precede the lower case a.

The result of MERGE "a-z" = "A-Z" is as follows:

Original Sorted List Sorted List

List Without MERGE Using MERGE

CAN AXE AXE

shovel BROOM boy

MAN CAN BROOM

BROOM DOG CAN

TABLE MAN drawer

AXE TABLE DOG

drawer boy MAN

boy drawer shovel

DOG shovel TABLE

Merging Unequal Strings

The following example shows how to use the >ALTSEQ command to merge unequal strings:

:SORT

HP32214A.01.00 SORT/3000 THU, JUN 4, 1987, 8:40 AM

>ALTSEQ MERGE "ABCD" WITH "ab"

>SHOW SEQUENCE

nul soh stx etx eot enq ack bel bs ht lf vt ff cr so si

dle dc1 dc2 dc3 dc4 nak syn etb can em sub esc fs gs rs us

sp ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . /