Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi guyz. i have two files. based on keys(chr1, chr2..) it has to loop through the second file of the same keys and has to take the minimum number after substraction. Sorry if I made my question complicated.

file1
chr2 1989
chr2 2500
chr1 1500

file 2
chr1 1339
chr2 2000
chr2 3000
chr2 1200
chr1 1600
chr2 4000

output
chr2...1989.....2000
chr2...2500.....3000
chr1...1500.....1600

Hi,

do someone know, How we can find the smallest distance between values of different columns?
Like I have column1 & column2.
-73.924598,40.879010
-73.924506,40.878978
-73.924506,40.878978
-73.921406,40.878178
-73.921406,40.878178
-73.920806,40.878578
-73.920206,40.878978
-73.920206,40.878978
-73.918706,40.876578
-73.918706,40.876578

If I want to see, which one is closer to the first point in 1st column among all the points in second column and so on??
How should I do?

hi I have bee trying to print the closest numbers in 2 arrays @set and @vals but the script i'm using giving the output only for 1st no in 1st array i.e 15 with all values in array2. I'm getting output 56 only. I need the values close to 150,200 and 250. Is there any thing wrong with the script.
Sorry If my question is perplexing

the script I'm using

#!usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my @set = (15, 150, 200, 250);
my @vals = (208, 258, 56, 123);

print closest(@set, @vals), "\n";

sub closest {
my $val = shift;
my @list = sort { abs($a - $val) <=> abs($b - $val) } @_;
$list[0];
}

All your code is doing is sorting a flattened list. Since 56 is the lowest number of the sorted list thats what gets returned. But after reading your post I can't figure out what it is you are actually wanting to do. Can you clarify?

sorting the columns should be the way to go.

ya u r right but i need the way to claculate it

NO
but i do agree my question needs more explanation
If i change the values in @set to only one number like 200 it gives the output as 208,closest number of 200
when I tried the script with only one value it is working properly.
I want to extract the closest numbers from set of values in column1 with column2 . the value 3 in column1 has to sort all the values in column2 (4,6,8,1) and gives the closest number i.e,4 and vice versa.
the crux is each value of column1 hat to sort all the values in column2
I wasted 2 days for this it would be really grateful if u answer this

3....4
4....6
......8
......1

output
3.....4
4.....6