Re: Comparing fields in 2 large files

Ferry, Craig wrote:
> 
> My original data is in a database.   I did really mean that field 1 in
> file a could be any part of field 1 in file b.   I also forgot to
> mention that in addition to it being in any part of field 1 of file b, I
> have to strip out special characters from file b before doing the
> comparison.
> 
> The reason I didn't keep it in the database, is that it seemed a little
> more complex and one of my coworkers suggested perl.   I am reasonably
> proficient at writing SQLs, so maybe I need to go back to the drawing
> board. 
> 
> Thanks for your suggestions.

Hi Craig

Please keep your responses to the perl.beginners group so that others can both
provide input as well as learn from your experience. Thanks.

I suggest you stick with Perl but process the data directly from the database.
Take a look at the DBI module, which isn't a standard one and so may need to be
installed. Using that you can write SQL from within a Perl program, and I'm sure
it will be a lot swifter that way.

Even so, it looks to me as if what you need can be written in a single SELECT
statement, in which case a Perl wrapper is simply an unnecessary overhead.
Without knowing the full details of the problem it's hard to tell.

Cheers,

Rob