Compare a date (mm/dd/yyyy) with awk

UNIX for Beginners Q & A
1

I have a bash script to extract data based on information in one column and I would like to add a date comparison in another column.

below is my file

cat foo

Info1.a   ,Info1.b   ,yes   ,Info1.d   ,Info1.e   ,Info1.f   ,01/01/2011   ,Info1.g   Info1.h   ,Info1.i   ,Info1.j   ,Info1.k   ,Info1.l
Info2.a   ,Info2.b   ,no    ,Info2.d   ,Info2.e   ,Info2.f   ,02/01/2012   ,Info2.g   Info2.h   ,Info2.i   ,Info2.j   ,Info2.k   ,Info2.l
Info3a   ,Info3.b   ,no    ,Info3.d   ,Info3.e   ,Info3.f   ,03/01/2013   ,Info3.g   Info3.h   ,Info3.i   ,Info3.j   ,Info3.k   ,Info3.l
Info4.a   ,Info4.b   ,yes   ,Info4.d   ,Info4.e   ,Info4.f   ,04/01/2014   ,Info4.g   Info4.h   ,Info4.i   ,Info4.j   ,Info4.k   ,Info4.l
Info5.a   ,Info5.b   ,yes   ,Info5.d   ,Info5.e   ,Info5.f   ,05/01/2015   ,Info5.g   Info5.h   ,Info5.i   ,Info5.j   ,Info5.k   ,Info5.l
Info6.a   ,Info6.b   ,no    ,Info6.d   ,Info6.e   ,Info6.f   ,06/01/2016   ,Info6.g   Info6.h   ,Info6.i   ,Info6.j   ,Info6.k   ,Info6.l
Info7.a   ,Info7.b   ,no    ,Info7.d   ,Info7.e   ,Info7.f   ,07/01/2017   ,Info7.g   Info7.h   ,Info7.i   ,Info7.j   ,Info7.k   ,Info7.l
Info8.a   ,Info8.b   ,yes   ,Info8.d   ,Info8.e   ,Info8.f   ,08/01/2018   ,Info8.g   Info8.h   ,Info8.i   ,Info8.j   ,Info8.k   ,Info8.l
Info8.a   ,Info8.b   ,no    ,Info8.d   ,Info8.e   ,Info8.f   ,09/01/2019   ,Info8.g   Info8.h   ,Info8.i   ,Info8.j   ,Info8.k   ,Info8.l

When I run the following command it returns nothing:

awk -F"," -v somedate="01/02/2015" '($3 == "yes" && $7 > somedate)' foo

However when I run the following command it returns some data but not what I am looking for:
sed "s/ //g" foo | awk -F"," -v somedate="01/02/2015" '($3 == "yes" && $7 > somedate)'

Info4.a,Info4.b,yes,Info4.d,Info4.e,Info4.f,04/01/2014,Info4.gInfo4.h,Info4.i,Info4.j,Info4.k,Info4.l
Info5.a,Info5.b,yes,Info5.d,Info5.e,Info5.f,05/01/2015,Info5.gInfo5.h,Info5.i,Info5.j,Info5.k,Info5.l
Info8.a,Info8.b,yes,Info8.d,Info8.e,Info8.f,08/01/2018,Info8.gInfo8.h,Info8.i,Info8.j,Info8.k,Info8.l

I would like to not remove the spaces and I would also like to have it return ony the following lines:

Info5.a   ,Info5.b   ,yes   ,Info5.d   ,Info5.e   ,Info5.f   ,05/01/2015   ,Info5.g   Info5.h   ,Info5.i   ,Info5.j   ,Info5.k   ,Info5.l
IInfo8.a   ,Info8.b   ,yes   ,Info8.d   ,Info8.e   ,Info8.f   ,08/01/2018   ,Info8.g   Info8.h   ,Info8.i   ,Info8.j   ,Info8.k   ,Info8.l

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

2

convert MM/DD/YYYY to YYYYMMDD and compare numerically.

3

I thought about that but I do not have control on the date format in the file and its several thousand lines long. Do you have any suggestions on how to convert the date? Some of the other columns would have dates in them as well. But I am only worried about comparing the data in the 7th column right now and I will process the other dates later once I have narrowed down the file with this command.

4

how about for starters...
awk -F, -v sd='01/02/2015' -f old.awk myFile where old.awk is:

function conv(d,  t) {
   split(d, t, "/")
   return (sprintf("%d%.02d%.02d", t[3], t[1], t[2]))
}
BEGIN {
  tab=sprintf("\t")
  somed=conv(trim(sd))
}

function trim(str)
{
    sub("^([ ]*|" tab "*)", "", str);
    sub("([ ]*|" tab "*)" "$", "", str);
    return str;
}

trim($3) == "yes" && conv(trim($7))>=somed