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NAME

       blm  - manipulate line oriented files using boolean set operations and,
       or, exclusive or, and set difference.

SYNOPSIS

       blm firstfile [+afile] [-bfile] [%cfile] [\&dfile] [@]...

DESCRIPTION

       blm reads in one or more line-oriented files and considers each file as
       a  set  of strings.  Blank lines do not represent the empty string, but
       instead  are  ignored.   The  first  command  line  argument  shown  as
       firstfile  above  represents  the starting set of lines.  The arguments
       are then interpretted according to Forward Polish  Notation  (FPN),  as
       described  by  Jan Lukasiewicz.  Jan invented the first widely accepted
       non-classical logic as well as this excellent notation. FPN requires no
       parentheses  to describe arbitrarily complex combinations of any number
       of binary operations.

       Each successive command line argument after  the  first  represents  an
       operation  that  starts  with  the  accumulator  set A, applies the set
       operation A op B, and then stores the  result  in  the  accumulator  A.
       Another  set operation may then be performed until all listed arguments
       are used up.  The result is then printed in  lexicographical  order  to
       standard output.  Four operations are supported:  Set union is the plus
       symbol (+).  Set intersection is the and symbol ( &  )  which  must  be
       escaped  in most shells.  Set difference is the subtraction symbol (-).
       And set exclusive or is represented by the percent sign (%).  There  is
       also  an  optional shuffling symbol toggle, (@), that means to randomly
       shuffle all output lines instead of sorting in  lexicographical  order.
       Thus, a simple way to randomize lines in a file is as follows:

       blm firstfile @

       If  a  filename  of  "-" is listed, it represents the standard input to
       blm.
              If  none  of the four option characters appears at the beginning
              of a filename argument, set addition (+) is assumed.

ENVIRONMENT

       No environment variables.

BUGS

       Please report bugs to the Debian BTS.

AUTHOR

       Rudi Cilibrasi <cilibrar@cilibrar.com>