Data Compare issues-Part 2

[JimF]

OK, this one is more serious than the last. I have two tab delimited data files that I want to compare. The structure of the two files is the same. I have setup a three field key to compare with. The records appear to be getting sorted by the key, but nothing is being matched. A lot of records should be matched, but they are not.

In this particular case a Text Compare is more useful than a Data Compare as no lines match in a Data Compare, even identical records on the same line. Each line shows up as an orphan to the other side.

Finally, I happened to notice that the last line of each file is being repeated 9 times in the Data Compare window.

If you wish, I can email you the data files to test with. I have "obscured" column names to make it obvious which columns are keys, important, and unimportant.

Header record:

Value1<tab>Key1<tab>Key2<tab>Key3<tab>Unimport1<ta b>Unimport2<tab>Value2

I am using Build 459.

Thank you,
Jim

[Erik]

Please send the files to [email protected].

Thanks,

[JimF]

Erik,

Sent--Thanks!

[Erik]

Thanks for the files. There was a bug in the sorting that will be fixed in the next release (build 460).

FYI, the columns you've defined as keys are not sufficient to uniquely identify a row. However, if you also make the first column a key then the rows will align uniquely.

[JimF]

Erik,

Thanks, and I am looking forward to build 460 then.

As far as your FYI, this file has duplicate keys (which was the issue I was trying to research with BC3). Will BC3 not match up rows based upon the keys and the other Important columns?

Thanks,
Jim

[Erik]

The Data Compare will align rows using only the key column(s). You should make any column you want to affect row alignment a key.