UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I have two text files containing records in following format:

file1 format is:

name1 age1 nickname1 path1

name2 age2 nickname2 path2

file 1 example is:

abcd 13 abcd.13 /home/temp/abcd.13

efgh 15 efgh.15 /home/temp/new/efgh.15

file 2 format is:

name1 age1 nickname1

name2 age2 nickname2

file 2 example:

abcd 13 abcd.13

efgh 21 efgh.21

file 2 is the current (up-to-date) file, and file 1 is the one that needs to update it's records to match file2. file1 contains records that might not exist in file2, and these records need to stay as-is. however, when updating, as in the above example, record efgh needs to be updated to reflect file2's values, so output should look like this:

output file:

abcd 13 abcd.13 /home/temp/abcd.13

efgh 21 efgh.21 /home/temp/new/efgh.21

how can i achieve this with korn shell scripting (using awk maybe?)

thanks

nawk -f al.awk file2 file1

al.awk:

Code:

FNR==NR { f2[$1]=$0; next }
$1 in f1 {
   n=split(f2[$1], arr, FS)
   for(i=2; i<=n; i++)
     $i=arr[i]
   print
   next;
}
1

Thanks, but i can't use nawk for some reason. I"m running hpux 11.11

so use either 'awk' or 'gawk'....

thanks vgersh99...

i'm still having a problem with the script though. It appears to just copy the contents of file1 (the out-of-date file) unaltered. any suggestions as to why?

file1 format: (out-of-date)
abcd 13 abcd.13 /home/temp/abcd.13
efgh 15 efgh.15 /home/temp/new/efgh.15

file2 format: (up-to-date)
abcd 13 abcd.13
efgh 21 efgh.21

output file: (DESIRED)
abcd 13 abcd.13 /home/temp/abcd.13
efgh 21 efgh.21 /home/temp/new/efgh.21

output file: (PRODUCED)
abcd 13 abcd.13 /home/temp/abcd.13
efgh 15 efgh.15 /home/temp/new/efgh.15

note in the PRODUCED output, the values associated with record "efgh" remained the same as they were in file1 (the out-of-date file) rather than updating according to file2's (the up-to-date file) values. any suggestions on how to fix this issue?

thanks a lot