Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

When combining multiple word lists with tidy, the tool currently interleaves words from the input files (taking word 1 from file1, word 1 from file2, word 2 from file1, word 2 from file2, etc.). While this behavior might be useful in some scenarios, there's no way to append word lists sequentially while preserving the original order and removing duplicates.

Current behavior:

• dict1.txt contains (all in bold):
  • admin
  • root
  • user
  • test
• dict2.txt contains:
  • password
  • guest
  • admin
  • backup

tidy --no-sort -o combined.txt dict1.txt dict2.txt

Output:

• admin
• password
• root
• guest
• user
• admin (interleaved)
• test
• backup

Note: "admin" appears twice because interleaving happens before deduplication

Describe the solution you'd like

Add a new flag (e.g., --no-interleave or --sequential) that processes input files sequentially:

1. Process the first file completely
2. Then process the second file (skipping duplicates)
3. Continue with remaining files

Expected behavior with new flag:

tidy --no-sort --no-interleave -o combined.txt dict1.txt dict2.txt

Output:

• admin
• root
• user
• test
• password
• guest
• backup

(dict1 complete, then dict2 without duplicates, preserving order)

Use case

This feature is particularly useful for penetration testing and CTF scenarios where:

• Word lists are often sorted by frequency/relevance (most common words first)
• Users want to combine a primary high-quality list with supplementary lists
• Preserving the priority order of the primary list is critical for efficient fuzzing/bruteforcing
• Example: Combining rockyou.txt (ordered by frequency) with custom company-specific wordlists

Describe alternatives you've considered

Current workarounds require using external tools:

# Using awk (not cross-platform, lacks tidy's other features)
cat dict1.txt dict2.txt | awk '!seen[$0]++'

# Using grep (very slow with large files)
cat dict1.txt > combined.txt && grep -Fxv -f dict1.txt dict2.txt >> combined.txt

These workarounds don't benefit from tidy's other powerful features like:

• --minimum-word-length / --maximum-word-length
• --remove-prefix / --remove-suffix
• --lowercase
• --remove-nonascii
• Attribute analysis

Additional context

The --no-sort flag already disables alphabetical sorting, which is great. This new flag would be a natural extension that gives users full control over input processing order.

Suggested implementation approach:

• Add --no-interleave / --sequential flag
• When enabled, process input files one at a time instead of alternating
• Maintain the existing deduplication logic
• Works in combination with --no-sort for full order preservation

Would you be willing to submit a PR for this feature?

Not at the moment