Challenging Merge Assistance needed...

[seidensc]

Hi All,
I have files that I would like to merge that contain data similar to the data below. When merging I would like to keep each header once. For the items that are different I would like to retain each difference and merge them into one file in the order of the Seed value which is always in columns 57 through 66. My end result should look like the "Result" below.

Any ideas how I can do this with Beyond Compare? It would be a start if I could just get each difference listed on its own line when doing a compare.

Please note that the seed position in this post appears to vary but in the files being compared it is always in columns 57 through 66.

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide,
Steve

File 1
Event 105 Boys 3200 Meter Run Division 2
================================================== ========
Name Year School Seed
================================================== ========
Section 1 Timed Finals
1 Bryce Smith SO Ashland 10:16.00
2 Travis Smith SO Northwestern 10:36.00
3 Mason Smith FR Northwestern 10:44.00
4 Nathan Smith SO Rice Lake 10:56.99

File 2
Event 105 Boys 3200 Meter Run Division 2
================================================== ========
Name Year School Seed
================================================== ========
Section 1 Timed Finals
1 Bryce Johnson SO Ashland 10:17.00
2 Travis Johnson SO Northwestern 10:38.00
3 Mason Johnson FR Northwestern 10:44.00
4 Nathan Johnson SO Rice Lake 10:58.99

Result
Event 105 Boys 3200 Meter Run Division 2
================================================== ========
Name Year School Seed
================================================== ========
Section 1 Timed Finals
1 Bryce Smith SO Ashland 10:16.00
1 Bryce Johnson SO Ashland 10:17.00
2 Travis Smith SO Northwestern 10:36.00
2 Travis Johnson SO Northwestern 10:38.00
3 Mason Johnson FR Northwestern 10:44.00
3 Mason Smith FR Northwestern 10:44.00
4 Nathan Smith SO Rice Lake 10:56.99
4 Nathan Johnson SO Rice Lake 10:58.99

[Aaron]

Hello,

Is everything in front position 57 considered the header, and should only be aligned if the header (1-56) is an exact match? Or should the alignment be based on the Seed Time? Can the Seed time ever be an exact match? If the seed time matches exactly, what would you want to do?

There are a couple of approaches to this.

You could use our Data Compare session, and "merge" all your changes into one side or the other. Setting the Seed Time as a column, you can mark it as the Key. This would sort and align by it. To create a column, go to the Tools menu -> File Formats, create a New data compare format, and in the Type tab set it to Type: Fixed. 56;9 (or different numbers based on where you want to place column breaks). To mark a column as the key, right click on the header in the graphical interface and select Key. Be sure to Unmark the first column as key, as that is normally defaulted.

[seidensc]

Just this part is the header:
Event 105 Boys 3200 Meter Run Division 2
================================================== ========
Name Year School Seed
================================================== ========
Section 1 Timed Finals

If you look at my "Results" section the detail lines are merged based on the seed times. if there is a match in times like 10:44.00 they are both listed and the order is really not important to me.

Detail Lines = "1 Bryce Smith SO Ashland 10:16.00 "

I thought about using the column to sort on but my sample holds data from just one section. There are several races (each defined by a header) and individual race times (details) listed underneath each header. An example of the headers would be:
Event 102 Girls 1600 Meter Run Division 2
Event 103 Boys 1600 Meter Run Division 2
Event 104 Girls 3200 Meter Run Division 2
Event 105 Boys 3200 Meter Run Division 2

The detail data must be sorted within each header but not the whole document.

This is tough. If I could get the comparison to list each side on different lines for the differences I should be able to simply copy one side to the other but I haven't found a way to do that.

[Michael Bulgrien]

Session -> Session Settings... -> Alignment tab -> [X] Never align differences checkbox

In a text compare, this will force differences to be on different lines so you can simply copy lines from one side to the other. It will not, however, sort the lines for you. You would need to do that step separately using another tool.

I don't see how you could do this in a data compare. First, I don't believe that there is an equivalent of "Never align differences" for the data compare. Second, an entry like "Rice Lake" (two words) would throw off your column alignment and put "Lake" into the column used by the other records for the Seed Time value.

[seidensc]

Thanks Michael. I had tried the never align differences but not in conjuction with the copy, I kept overlaying the existing lines in the original file the way that I was doing it.

This is better. After I merge the new lines I am sorting each section with Text Pad. It is cumbersome but it works.