pluck selfile < datafile [ > result ]
pluck is useful when selecting according to values in a fixed column of the datafile. The data column of interest must be the first column of the data (see deal(P)). The selection must be based on numerical values (see also BUGS, below).
The first column of selfile is assumed to contain numbers corresponding to values to be selected from the datafile.
pluck does not require any sorting of the files. However, there is a limit on the largest number which can be selected.
Bpluck (big pluck) can handle more arbitrary numbers (even text) in the selection file, but in this case there is a limit on the size of the selection file. Bpluck requires the selection file to have only one column, the column of values to be selected.
Bpluck overcomes the limitation of pluck, by using the selection file for building a command for egrep, to search for strings at the beginning of lines in the datafile. The shell on the user's system will limit the size of the search string, which implies a limit on the number of items in the selection file.
Note that fgrep(1) can be used with the same input as bpluck. This may alleviate some of the limitations of the number of search-items in bpluck, but fgrep will of course search for the search-strings anywhere in the data file, not just in the first column.