Remove lines from File.A based on criteria in File.B

UNIX for Beginners Q & A
1

Hello,

I have two files of the following form. I would like to remove from File.A where the first three colum matches values in File.B to give the output in File.C

File.A

121	54321	PQR	CAT
122	765431	ABC	DOG
124	98765	ZXY	TIGER
125	86432	GEF	LION

File.B

122	765431	ABC
125	86432	GEF

I would like my output to be:
File.C

121	54321	PQR	CAT
124	98765	ZXY	TIGER

Thank you for your input!
Gussi

2

Hello Gussifinknottle,

Could you please try following and let me know if this helps you.

awk 'FNR==NR{a[$1]=$0;next} !($1 in a)' File.B File.A

Thanks,
R. Singh

3

To test for first THREE columns as specified, try

awk '{IX = $1 $2 $3} FNR == NR {T[IX] = $0; next} !(IX in T)' file2 file1
1 Like
4

If it's really as simple as this format and you can be sure that you won't get false matches hiding some of your desired output, would you be okay with a grep command?

Perhaps this will do it for you:-

grep -vf File.B File.A > File.C

I hope that this helps.

Kind regards,
Robin

5

Thanks! @RudiC - I tried and it works :b::).

@Robin - My data files for the inquiry were for a toy example - the grep does not work (which I tried before posting in the forum)

@R.Singh - I need to test for 3 columns, as @RudiC pointed out.

Thanks all for your input!
~Gussi