UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I found this very helpful forum and there are very friendly people, I have a small request.


I use AIX Unix and would like to know if there's a simple way how to do a kind of compare between two files.

I have 2 text files, let's name them file1 and file2.

What I need:

I want to read line by line file1 - certain field or better 2 fields of the file1 and look up the information in the file2.

To be more descriptive: I'd like to extract field1 at position 10-15 and field2 at position 25-31 from file1 and search or find if the same information is somewhere inside the file2. When no, I'd like to output the field1 & field2 off the file1 doesn't exit in file2.

let's say file1 contains something like:

123232 3232 2323 2323123123213 trterert

and file2 e.g.

123232 3232 2323 2323123123213 XXXXXXXX

and let's say I want 123232 & trterert from file1 to be searched in file2 ==> I get an "error" because the script would find only 123232 and not trterert.....

I'd be more than happy if someone can help me out or recommend a link or appropriate command or script.

I just need to check some record(s) in one file - and if they're available in the other file...

Please!

Thanks a lot!

Marian

Code:

# put the first column and 
#   fifth column into a file, 
#   make it unique values

awk '{ print $1,$5 } ' file1 | sort -u > patternfile
#  loop thru the patterns from file1 
#  look for them in file2, print patterns if not found
while read pattern1 pattern2
do
    if [ ${#pattern2} -eq 0 ]; then  # skip when pattern2 isn't there
        continue
    fi
	grep "$pattern1" file2 | grep -q "$pattern2"
	if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
		echo "$pattern1" "$pattern2"
	fi
done < patternfile

I'm assuming the fields from file1 can be anywhere on the line in file2.

Thanks Jim,

what if I want to extract not columns but certain positions from file1? I mean I don't have any columns resp. tabs?

I'd like to choose e.g. positions 5-9 (let's say string1) and 23-35 (string2) from file1 and then search for it in file2 (whatever line with both string1 and string2 - doesn't matter at which position).

I hope you can 'fix' the script to reflect this

Many thanks for you kind help!

Marian