field delimeters

[fumang]

I am creating a script in which I need to verify the contents of two separate documents at the same time. Say Doc. A&B. I need to go into each of these documents and verify that there is a specified number of fields, in this case 9 fields. I also need to verify that the field delimeters/separators are the same, i.e. a semi-colon. I would appreciate any help. I have been working on this for a long time and I haven't been able to make it work.

Thanks

 

[tdatgod]

hi,
why can't you just do a cmp? are there issues like....

1;2;3;4;5;6;7;8;9

is supposed to be identical to

1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9

what about trailing spaces

1 ;2 ;3 ;4 ;5 ;6 ;7 ;8 ;9

what about both?

1 ; 2 ; 3 ; 4 ; 5 ; 6 ; 7 ; 8 ; 9

is it possible to have the delimiter as part of a string in one of the files like....

1 ; 2 ; 3 ; 4 ; 5 ; 6 ; '7;junk' ; 8 ; 9

 

[grega]

You could use awk to count fields in each doc and then compare in the script ...

DOC1NF=$(awk -F";" 'NR==1 {print NF}' document1)
DOC2NF=$(awk -F";" 'NR==1 {print NF}' document2)

if [ $DOC1NF = $DOC2NF ]
then
same # fields in each
else
different # of fields
fi

If the field separator is OK, then the # fields should be OK.

Greg.

 

[fumang]

Thanks! I played around with the awk script and got it to work. thanks for pointing me in the right direction