Using Join Command

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Greetings,
I am attempting to use the join command to produce a file from 2 sorted comma seperated files. Ex.:
FILE 1:
jane,dow
joe,blow

FILE 2:
jane,dow,50,50,20
joe,blow,29,53,25
spike,lee,50,91,05

I want the resulting file to be reconds in FILE 2 where the person exists in FILE 1. ex:

joe,blow,29,53,25
jane,dow,50,50,20

I've tried using join -t, -j1 1 -j1 2 -j2 1 -j2 2 -o "2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5" FILE1 FILE 2 but it seems to only give me the first record matched (joe,blow,29,53,25). I expect the number of records in the resulting file to be the same as that of FILE 1.

Any help would be appreciated to resolve my problem.
Thanks,
Marcel Sammut

2

how about:

#!/bin/sh
while read line
do
    grep "$line" /path/to/file2 >> file3
done < /path/to/file1
3

Try...

fgrep -f file1 file2
4

With trhe these two solutions, too many records may be selected.
For example, the following record in file2 will be selected :

big-joe,blow,29,53,25

A little modification to Hadarot code :

#!/bin/sh
while read line
do
    grep "^$line," /path/to/file2 >> file3
done < /path/to/file1

Another solution with awk :

awk '
BEGIN {
   FS = ",";
   while (getline < ARGV[1])
      persons[$0]++;
   ARGV[1]="";
} 
{
   person = $1 "," $2;
   if (person in persons) print;
} ' /path/to/file1 /path/to/file2

Jean-Pierre.

5

Thanks for all those who've replied.

I've figured out how to use the join command for this task. Turns out join only works on one column key. So I had to concatenate the "first name" with the "last name" (i.e.: joe|blow,29,53,25 - where i used pipe to seperate the two keys).

With the use of cut and paste commands, I managed to get what I wanted.

I did try the posted suggestions, however, my application is a bit more complicated than my sample files.

Cheers,
Marcel