comparex without sorting ?

preethan · New User Joined: 15 Dec 2008 Posts: 33 Location: Chennai

I am facing some hurdles in SERENA comparex.

Consider I am having two files

SYSUT1 with data :

ABC
DEF
XYZ

SYSUT2 with data :

XYZ
DEF
ABC

Say i have a key = (1,3)

Now what happens here, 'ABC' from SYSUT1 is checked with the keys of SYSUT2. It encounters 'XYZ' and 'DEF', before getting 'ABC' in SYSUT2. Now 'DEF' is checked with keys of SYSUT2. Since SYSUT2 has already reached end of the file, This is considered as an insert. Similar thing happens to 'XYZ' in sysut1 and 'DEF' , 'XYZ' is sysut2. So it will show like 2 inserts in sysut1 and 2 inserts in sysut2.

To overcome this problem i used to sort both files. Is there any option in comparex to overcome the problem without sorting ?

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 1:40 am

why not look at the comparex manual Yourself ?

preethan · New User Joined: 15 Dec 2008 Posts: 33 Location: Chennai

I have gone through the manual already. Since am not finding any, I am posting it here to check if any one knows.

Akatsukami · Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 1:53 am

preethan · New User Joined: 15 Dec 2008 Posts: 33 Location: Chennai

i am not understanding what you are talking. If people don't know the answer , they can keep quiet instead of posting something irrelevant to the topic

preethan · New User Joined: 15 Dec 2008 Posts: 33 Location: Chennai

The examples which i mentioned was purely to illustrate. I have been involved in comparing two big files. So i am fed up comparing both. Key everything looks fine. But i am getting inserts in sysut1 and 2. Now after sorting both files i am not getting any differences. It makes me puzzled and need to know why.

Akatsukami · Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 2:06 am

Irrelevant to the topic or exposing your ignorance?

Bill Woodger · Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 2:11 am

Try google (for your latest question).

Unless it is your own board, don't try telling people what they can and can't do.

Does Comparex have an option to "Do what I want, not what you do"? Your data is messed up. If it should match, it doesn't. That is not Comparex's fault.

I'm sure you'll find, in the manual, various ways to select records to compare, parts of records to compare. I doubt you'll find something for "the file is totally screwed, give me a clean compare anyway, I wanna get on".

Sorting the file to get a clean compare does not sound like a good idea to me.

The files either should match, subject to what you can specify, or they shouldn't match, so you'd not bother to compare them.

If you can be clear about what you are really trying to do, maybe you get something, though you're the first person I've seen mention Comparex here, so you may even then be out of luck.

I used Comparex a long time ago. If the file was pickled, it would act exactly as you describe. Good indicator to look at the problem causing the pickling, rather than try to mess around with Comparex control cards.

EDIT: I see things have moved on.

dbzTHEdinosauer · Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 2:15 am

oh boy, it is whinny-ass day again.

you have to use the comparex -psychic compare parm

EDIT: i was also a victim of slow fingers.

Bill Woodger · Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 2:18 am

OK, you have a very simple situation.

Although the data is the same on both files, the order of the data is not the same. The further into the compare it gets, the more "spurious" inserts and deletes will be reported.

You have to concentrate on where it first went wrong, fogetting that later everything looks a mess. You have at least one record out of sequence, and it is possible that that is all. Or a handful or a hundred. You have to find out. Look at the first few errors, identify what is common, start digging.

If there has been a SORT step along the way in producing the files, and on one side there is EQUAL and the other NOEQUALS, or both NOEQUALS, then that is a very easy way to achieve this effect.

EDIT: I always ran Comparex with a limit to the number of errors to report. If the files were clean, it would get to the end anyway. If not, you don't get the great pile of junk after the useful stuff that you never look at anyway.

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 3:01 am

preethan · New User Joined: 15 Dec 2008 Posts: 33 Location: Chennai

Bill Woodger · Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 4:16 am

If you said all this up front, you'd maybe have had an easier ride...