Hi Paul, > these databases have been simple table of information that need to be > stored, updated and printed. It would almost work as a table in a word > processed document bar the fact that you can't sort properly there.
Before databases were common on Unix, this would be the province of its programming environment. One-line per record text files were a table. awk(1) can do selections, projections, and calculations, e.g. aggregations. sort(1)'s available. Combined with uniq(1) you get details of frequencies, duplications, or just a unique list. comm(1) highlights differences. join(1) does a relational join of tables, and paste(1) a simple side-by-side join. All coordinated by a shell script or too for common canned tasks and reports, troff(1) and pr(1) providing formatting pretty formatting or simple pagination. It's a fun way of learning Unix, even if SQLite is handily on-tap these days. Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday, 2013-11-05 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:[email protected] How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
