rid [-dgiltuDGILTU] [inputfile ...]

Humdrum comments are records that begin with an exclamation mark (!). Local comments begin each active spine with a single exclamation mark, whereas gobal comments begin with two exclamation marks (!!) at the beginning of the record. A global comment consisting of only two exclamation marks is a null global comment. If a local comment record contains only single exclamation marks in each spine, it is dubbed a null local comment.

Humdrum interpretations are records that begin with an asterisk (*). Tandem interpretations begin each active spine with a single asterisk, whereas exclusive interpretations begin with an asterisk and have at least one active spine beginning with two asterisks. If each active spine contains only a single asterisk, the record is dubbed a null interpretation.

Records that are not comments or interpretations are deemed to be data records. Null tokens are data tokens consisting of just the period character (.). A data record containing only null tokens (separated by tabs) is a null data record.

A duplicate exclusive interpretation is an exclusive interpretation that repeats the name of an interpretation that is already active for a given spine. If a spine has not been terminated, there is frequently little need to indicate (again) the active interpretation for a given spine. (An exception occurs when the user wants the data to be processed as discontinuous -- such as avoiding calculating pitch intervals between the last note of one piece and the first note of a subsequent piece.)

-h	displays a help screen summarizing the command syntax
-D	remove all data records
-d	remove null data records
-G	remove all global comments
-g	remove null global comments
-I	remove all interpretation records
-i	remove null interpretation records
-L	remove all local comments
-l	remove null local comments
-T	remove all tandem interpretations
-U	remove unnecessary (duplicate) exclusive interpretations
-u	same as -U

In general, upper-case options eliminate all records of a given type, whereas the corresponding lower-case options eliminate only null records (devoid of signifiers) for a given record type.

rid -dlu input

will eliminate all null data records, all null local comments, and any unnecessary (duplicate) exclusive interpretations:

!! `rid' example
!!
**abc	**xyz
*tand	*em
12	.
!local	!comments
*	*
*x	*x
.	34
*-	*-

rid -DGLiT input

will eliminate all data records, all global and local comments, all null interpretations, and all tandem interpretations:

**abc	**xyz
*x	*x
**xyz	**abc
*-	*-

• Pertinent description in the Humdrum User Guide
• Index to Humdrum Commands
• Table for Contents for Humdrum User Guide