One last try,

Lets say I have two comma separated lists of fruit:

fruit1.txt

Code:

apples,red,2,32,8
pears,green,4,8,20
grapes,black,150,200,160
bannas, yellow,20,15,12
mangos,yellow,30,40,60

fruit2.txt

Code:

apples,red,2,32,10
pears,green,4,8,20
grapes,black,150,300,160
bannas, yellow,20,15,12
mangos,yellow,50,40,60

If I use the code:

Code:

 
awk -F"," 'NR == FNR {A[$0]=$0; next } !A[$0]' OFS="," fruit1.txt fruit2.txt >> diff_fruit2.txt

The resultant file diff_fruit2.txt (difference between the two files) should look like below:

diff_fruit.txt

Code:

apples,red,2,32,10
grapes,black,150,300,160
mangos,yellow,50,40,60

Where row 1, field 5 has changed from 8 to 10. Row 3, field 4 has changed from 200 to 300. Row 5, field 3 has changed from 30 to 50.

What I want to know is, rather than index the whole row, $0, to an array, can I assign field numbers. Can I index fields $1, $2, and $5 to an array to get the ouput:

diff_fruit.txt

Code:

apples,red,10

Or index fields $1, $2, $4 to an array to get ouput:

diff_fruit.txt

Code:

grapes,black,300

Or index fields $1, $2, $3 to an array to get output:

diff_fruit.txt

Code:

mangos,yellow,50

My last part of the question is, if the above is possible. Can I put this in a loop and output to different files. For example, name the files using the field number.

diff_fruit_5.txt

Code:

apples,red,10

diff_fruit_4.txt

Code:

grapes,black,300

diff_fruit_3.txt

Code:

mangos,yellow,50

The files i'm using are very big with lots of fields. I need a practical way to spot differences between the two files. Printing out the whole row where there is a difference is just not feasible in my case. I would be there for a month of Sundays trying to decipher the output.

Hope my example is clearer. Thanks in advance,
theflamingmoe

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