Shell Programming and Scripting

Hello all,

I have 2 text files.
For example:
File1.txt contains data

Code:

A
B
C
D
****NEXT****
X
Y
Z
****NEXT****
L
M
N

and File2.txt contains data

Code:

P
Q
X
****NEXT****
E
F
G
B
****NEXT**** 
J
K
L

As you can see the data is grouped and if you observe the 2 files, there are common data in each group - X,B,L is common in both files. Now based on these 2 files data and common factor I move to a third file in this format

Code:

B A B C D E F G
X X Y Z P Q
L L M N J K

Is this insane request even possible in shell script. Please help.

I'm lost. What goes where based on which criteria?

The 2 files contains the data one below the other as shown in the examples above and if you take a look at both the files, the common data is available in both the text files with the ***NEXT*** indicating that a group ends....

So I need the data from both the files with the common factor (data) as the catalyst to merge the group and write into a third file.

Example once again: 'B' is common in both files which is termed as a group
ABCD and EFGB... so these 2 needs to be merged based on the common factor B and written into a third file with the data now shown B A B C D E F G with the common data first and the remaining data in one line. HTH

It's lit bit lenghty

try

Code:

$ awk -v a=1 -v b=1 'NR==FNR{if($0 ~ /****NEXT****/){a++}else{A[$0]++;X[a]=X[a]?X[a] FS $0 : $0}next}{
if($0 ~ /****NEXT****/){b++}else{Y[b]=Y[b]?Y[b] FS $0 : $0}}END{
for(i in X){n=split(X[i],P)
for(j in Y){
for(t=1;t<=n;t++){
if(Y[j] ~ P[t]){gsub(P[t],"",Y[j]);print P[t],X[i],Y[j]}}}}}' file1 file2
 
B A B C D E F G
X X Y Z P Q
L L M N J K

shortened

Thanks Pamu. But I get this error

Code:

couldn't set locale correctly
couldn't set locale correctly
awk: syntax error near line 1
awk: bailing out near line 1

Why then is it B A B C D E F G and not B B A C D E F G? Why move the second group's B up front, but not the first one's?

Use /usr/xpg4/bin/awk or nawk on Solaris.