Re: Comparing two records of a file

On Thu, 2005-11-10 at 04:07 -0800, gopal barnwal wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> There is a scenario where I have to compare two set of
> records of a file which has got 200 fields.  Out of
> these 200 fields other than the key field if the value
> of any field is different then I have to print it. 
> Something like Rec1 is compared with Rec2 of FileA.
> It won't be wise to compare each field with a CASxx or
> IFxx in the RPG program for each field.  Is there a
> way where this can be done in a efficient way.
> 
> Early response will really be appreciated.

Yes, I wrote such a tool for a customer a few years ago.

* Identify a list of files, and run a program for each one.

Mainly, it needs to:
* Get a list of fields
* Get a list of keys

Use the cycle 'matching records' mechanism to examine all records in
each set of files, so you can easily tell where filea has a record that
fileb doesn't, or where fileb has a record that filea doesn't.

Then compare the two records.  If they are different, start pulling out
each field (using %subst) and compare them.  If they differ, then what I
did was print each key, and followed it up with each field that was
different.

It took a couple days to write and test and saved us *loads* of time on
an upgrade.

Regards,
Rich