BC3 not matching similar lines together

[jchurchill]

I'm using version 3.1.10 build 11626. I have a large amount of data that was already compared using a custom tool. The leftover stuff is all lines that don't match, but usually just in a small way. Each record is a single line of text. To facilitate this, I've pushed the key defining attribute, an id value, to the front of each line. The lines are sorted so that BC will have an easy time matching up. For the most part this works, but it's baffling when it doesn't. Here's an example of two sets of rows (truncated) from the top of two files:

TrdCaptRpt:{!id=0000000638_BizDt=2010-02-08_LastPx=3.96_LastQty=20_MsgEvt
TrdCaptRpt:{!id=0000001775_BizDt=2010-02-08_LastPx=3.54_LastQty=25_MsgEvt
TrdCaptRpt:{!id=0000001850_BizDt=2010-02-08_LastPx=3.595_LastQty=48_MsgEv
TrdCaptRpt:{!id=0000001851_BizDt=2010-02-08_LastPx=3.5975_LastQty=2_MsgEv
TrdCaptRpt:{!id=0000001887_BizDt=2010-02-08_LastPx=3.685_LastQty=35_MsgEv

TrdCaptRpt:{!id=0000001850_BizDt=2010-02-08_LastPx=3.595_LastQty=48_MsgEv
TrdCaptRpt:{!id=0000001851_BizDt=2010-02-08_LastPx=3.5975_LastQty=2_MsgEv
TrdCaptRpt:{!id=0000001887_BizDt=2010-02-08_LastPx=3.685_LastQty=35_MsgEv
TrdCaptRpt:{!id=0000001888_BizDt=2010-02-08_LastPx=3.71_LastQty=25_MsgEvt
TrdCaptRpt:{!id=0000001889_BizDt=2010-02-08_LastPx=3.7125_LastQty=94_MsgE

The first pair of lines in the first set do not match on ID with anything in the second set, but the next three do match on ID with the first three of the second set. If you compare using the above lines you will get the effect I'm after - there will be some blank space on the top of one file so that the three that match will match up.

However I truncated off about 3000 characters to keep this short (and unrevealing), and there is more data in all of the lines that do not match (otherwise they would not be in this list). This seems to confuse BC in some cases, giving me the unhelpful results I'm having. I've tinkered with the settings to no avail - I cannot get BC3 to match up those three lines based on the text near the front of the line.

Is there a way to adjust this somehow so that it works better?

One more thing - please make a Mac OSX version. The dearth of quality compare tools on OSX is annoying me to no end.

[Chris]

You might have better luck comparing the files using the Data Compare.

First you'll need to create a new file format for the files. Select "Tools > File Formats". Click New and set Data Format as the type. Name the format and enter a mask that matches the extension of your files, such as "*.dat". Select "Delimited" as the type, then check "Other" as the delimiter and enter _ as the delimiter character.

When you open the files in the Data Compare, it should sort on the first part of each line that contains the id=0000000000000638 text.