Shell Programming and Scripting

Hello Experts,

This sounds crazy, but one of my requirements is that if ID in 5th column in my input file (: separated) is not present in the oracle database table (say t_id) then this record should be skipped. I am using awk for all other requirements. So I was thinking if this requirement can also be accommodated in the same awk script.
Is it really possible to do something like this...

Code:

awk 'BEGIN{FS=OFS=":"}$5~<select ID from t_id>{print}' input

Appreciate for any help.

I don't think this is the best way for handling this task.

I would suggest using SQL Loader for loading your colon separated file to a temporary table.

Later you can join this temporary table with your table: t_id to identify missing or common fields from your input file.

Thanks so much Yoda. I was also thinking on the same line... I was just trying not to create any extra table for this task, but looks like no other option but to create one. Anyway, thanks a lot.

The reason why I didn't recommend your approach is because for each record in your input file you have to establish a connection to DB and fire the query.

Hence this method is going to be really inefficient and time consuming.

So it is really OK and much better approach to create a table and perform the join operation.

That makes more sense to me. Thanks a ton, Yoda !