Comparing unordered but similar data files

gwam has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello Perl Monks. I'm new to Perl and having a spot of bother. I'm trying to read in two data files which contain identical data but the data is out of order. I need to make sure the data from both files is in fact identical despite the order. The code I have so far is as follows:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

open (FILE, "exp.log") || die;
my @array = <FILE>;
close(FILE);

print "\n\n\nExpected log read and stored";

open (FILE2, "actual.log") || die;
my @array2 = <FILE2>;
close(FILE2);

print "\n\n\nActual log read and stored\n\n\n";

my @sorted  = sort(@array);
my @sorted2 = sort(@array2);

if(@sorted eq @sorted2) {
    print "Success! Actual log and expected log contain the same data\
+n\n";}
else {
     print "Failure! Actual log and expected log contain different dat
+a\n\n";
}

#print "@sorted\n";

print "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n-------------------------------------\n\n\n\n
+\n\n";

#print "@sorted2\n";

exit;
[download]

a sample from one of the data files is as follows:

.MAMACACHE_REGRESSION.AGT.M Type: INITIAL Status OK 
  MdMsgType            |    1 |            U8 | 1
  MdMsgStatus          |    2 |            U8 | 0
  MdSeqNum             |   10 |           U32 | 0
  MamaAppMsgType       |   18 |            U8 | 0
  MamaSenderId         |   20 |           U64 |6991275514488954478
.MAMACACHE_REGRESSION.BCO.M Type: INITIAL Status OK 
  MdMsgType            |    1 |            U8 | 1
  MdMsgStatus          |    2 |            U8 | 0
  MdSeqNum             |   10 |           U32 | 0
  MamaAppMsgType       |   18 |            U8 | 0
  MamaSenderId         |   20 |           U64 | 6991275514488954478
[download]

The idea I had was to read in the two files, sort them (thus making the out of order a non issue)then compare the newly sorted array. However the problem I'm having is when i make subtle changes to one of the files (for eg changing a number from 20 to 19) the script still believes the two files are equal and only denotes a "failure" if the one of the text files has more lines introduced. Hope this makes sense. All the best!

Comment on Comparing unordered but similar data files Select or Download Code

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Re: Comparing unordered but similar data files by Kanji (Parson) on Sep 23, 2010 at 00:37 UTC
Your use of `eq` is actually comparing the number of elements in each array, which is why you only see a failure if one file has more lines than the other. If you're using Perl 5.10 or newer, you can achieve what you want using `~~` (the smart match operator) instead:- `if (@sorted ~~ @sorted2) {` [download] If you're using Perl 5.8 or older, you'll need to compare the arrays element by element, an example of which you can find in perlfaq4 - How do I test whether two arrays or hashes are equal?. --k.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Comparing unordered but similar data files by gwam (Initiate) on Sep 23, 2010 at 07:05 UTC
Thanks alot Kanji! That done the trick. I figured it was something like that. I thought i was going to need a foreach loop to access and compare each element in the arrays. awesome that Perl has that smart match operator. Thanks again you saved me alot of time.	[reply]
Re: Comparing unordered but similar data files by perlpie (Beadle) on Sep 23, 2010 at 00:40 UTC
monks: gather your stones while I don my armor... maybe perl isn't the best tool here `$ cat abc a b c d e e e ff fff g $ cat abc2 a fff e g e e b c d ff $ sort abc > sorted_abc $ sort abc2 > sorted_abc2 $ diff -u sorted_abc sorted_abc2 $ rm sorted*` [download] Then edit one of the files and repeat. You'll get a diff. In the above case no diff is shown because the files are the same when sorted.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Comparing unordered but similar data files by choroba (Cardinal) on Sep 23, 2010 at 19:49 UTC
If shell, I'd bash it like this: `comm -3 <(sort abc) <(sort abc2)` [download]	[reply] [d/l]