Shell Programming and Scripting

So I have a list of account names in one file (File-A). I have an account History file (File-B) of accounts I want to take out of File-A. I wish to not include some accounts which were added in the past month.

It would be nice (i.e. less time spent editing) to edit out contents of File-B while using Vi on File-A. If anyone has any suggestions on how to do this quickly that would be great.

So far I've used grep -n, diff -a but you still have to append to other files or create new files. I know Vi is very powerful but very strange to use. It would be nice to be within one file and just use the other file as a reference.

---------- Post updated at 12:24 PM ---------- Previous update was at 12:20 PM ----------

I mean I want to execute a UNIX command within Vi (i.e. use !)

Assuming you have input like this:-

Code:

$ cat File-A
12300 Target account 1
12321 Target account 2
12344 Target account 3
12345 Account to exclude 1
22344 Target account 4
22346 Account to exclude 2
32347 Account to exclude 3
52344 Target account 5

$ cat File-B
12345
22346
32347

.... and you want the records of File-B that are not in the reference of File-A, you could simply use grep with the -vf options thus:-

Code:

grep -vf File-B File-A > File-C

You can then rename File-C to File-A. Make sure you do not try to do it all in one step like this:-

Code:

grep -vf File-B File-A > File-A

.... or you will just end up with an empty File-A


If you worry that you might exclude too many records, e.g. one that has the string 12345 in the middle somewhere, change your File-B to have a leading ^ and a trailing space (or whatever delimiter you use in File-A)


I hope that this helps, or have I missed the point completely?

Apologies if I have.


Robin
Liverpool/Blackburn
UK

No no You haven't missed the point at all. It's actually what I tried to use to get the initial output.

Yeah, I guess I should have told you what the file contents are. Basically both files have a list of 8 character (or less) usernames, one on each new line. File-A has a list which might/might-not include some usernames which I don't want to include. The ones I don't want to include are in File-B. So basically I want to remove any possible similarities between the two files from File-A.

However, I would like to be able to accomplish this from within Vi if possible. But your idea is great too.