Finding an optimal solution may not be possible (without searching the complete space of 2^100 possibilities) but you might try something like this:

1) For each column count the number of different values in it (easily done with hashes)

2) Sort that column list lowest number first

3) Set a key of all columns

3) Foreach column on that list try to remove it from the key and see if two lines have the same key now. if yes, re-add the column to your key, otherwise leave it off

This will give you exactly one solution. If you want to look for better solutions, you might rerun the algorithm, but scramble the sorted list of columns somewhat to get at different solutions. You could even use a totally random column list, but most likely you will get too many suboptimal solutions presented that way

In reply to Re: Finding Keys from data by jethro
in thread Finding Keys from data by aartist

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.