Marsel:
Another way you might be able to do the job is with a file merge. To do so, sort both files on the key(s) of interest, then read records in order and merge them as appropriate.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use warnings;
open F1, 'sort -k3 mergefile.1|' or die "opening file 1";
open F2, 'sort -k2 mergefile.2|' or die "opening file 2";
open OUF, '>', 'mergefile.out' or die "opening output file";
my @in1;
my @in2;
sub getrec1 {
@in1 = ();
if (!eof(F1)) {
(@in1) = split /\t/, <F1>;
chomp $in1[2];
}
}
sub getrec2 {
@in2 = ();
if (!eof(F2)) {
(@in2) = split /\t/, <F2>;
chomp $in2[2];
}
}
sub write1 {
print OUF "$in1[2]\t$in1[0]\t$in1[1]\tnull\tnull\n";
getrec1;
}
sub write2 {
print OUF "$in2[1]\tnull\tnull\t$in2[0]\t$in2[2]\n";
getrec2;
}
sub writeboth {
print OUF "$in1[2]\t$in1[0]\t$in1[1]\t$in2[0]\t$in2[2]\n";
getrec1;
getrec2;
}
# Prime the pump
getrec1;
getrec2;
while (1) {
last if $#in1<0 and $#in2<0;
if ($#in1<0 or $#in2<0) {
# Only one file is left...
write2 if $#in1<0;
write1 if $#in2<0;
}
elsif ($in1[2] eq $in2[1]) {
# Matching records, merge & write 'em
writeboth;
}
elsif ($in1[2] lt $in2[1]) {
# unmatched item in file 1, write it & get next rec
write1;
}
else {
# unmatched item in file 2, write it & get next rec
write2;
}
}
Example output:
root@swill ~/PerlMonks
$ cat mergefile.1
15 20 foo
22 30 bar
30 33 baz
14 22 fubar
root@swill ~/PerlMonks
$ cat mergefile.2
alpha baz 17.30
gamma foobar 22.35
gamma bar 19.01
delta fromish 33.03
sigma bear 14.56
root@swill ~/PerlMonks
$ ./file_merge.pl
root@swill ~/PerlMonks
$ cat mergefile.out
bar 22 30 gamma 19.01
baz 30 33 alpha 17.30
bear null null sigma 14.56
foo 15 20 null null
foobar null null gamma 22.35
fromish null null delta 33.03
fubar 14 22 null null
root@swill ~/PerlMonks
$
--Roboticus