Hi All,

I have two files to compare. Each has 10 columns with first 4 columns being key index together. The rest of the columns have monetary values.

I want to read one file into hash; check for the key value availability in file 2; then compare the values in the rest of 6 columns; report the differences found.

The files are comman separated and do not have header

Here is the sample file:
File A:
Row1: abcd,abrd,fun,D000,$15,$236,$217,$200,$200,$200
Row2: dear,dare,tun,D000,$12.00405,$234.08976,$212.09876,$200,$200,$200

File B:
Row1: abcd,abrd,fun,D000,$12,$234,$212,$200,$200,$200
Row2: dear,dare,tun,D000,$12.00405,$234.08976,$212.09876,$200,$200,$200

Output:
Difference found for index abcd,abrd,fun,D000 for field 5,6 and 7

Any help would be appreciated. I am able to come up with the script in Bash, but not very comfortable with the concept of Hash in Perl and also setting up key index columns.

Thanks!

I'm not comfortable with setting up key index columns but I may be able to answer some questions about a hash. With what about the concept of hash are you not comfortable?

The main things you need to know, in order to read a file into a hash are

  • How to declare a hash
  • How to add a key-value pair to a hash and that only scalar keys and values can be stored in a hash
  • How to check if a particular key exists in your hash, and if it does, how to access it
  • How to iterate through your keys so you can access all the key-value pairs

Given a file named b.txt which contains the following:

abcd,abrd,fun,D000,$12,$234,$212,$200,$200,$200
dear,dare,tun,D000,$12.00405,$234.08976,$212.09876,$200,$200,$200

here is an example of how you can read this file into a hash and then iterate through and print the keys and values:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use warnings;
my $filename_b = '/home/david/Programming/Perl/b.txt';
my %b = %{read_into_hash($filename_b)};

foreach (keys %b) {
    print "The key $_ has $b{$_} as its value\n";
    my $aref = $b{$_};
    print "$b{$_} is a reference to an array containing @{$aref}\n";
}

sub read_into_hash {
    my $file = $_[0];
    my %h = ();
    open (my $fh, '<', $file);
    while (<$fh>) {
        my @fields = split(/,/);
        my $hkey = join(",", @fields[0..3]);
        $h{$hkey} = [@fields[4..9]];
    }
    return \%h;
}

Hi d5e5,

Thanks for the sample code! it worked like a gem.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.