linuxterminaldifffile-comparison

Comparing two files in Linux terminal


There are two files called "a.txt" and "b.txt" both have a list of words. Now I want to check which words are extra in "a.txt" and are not in "b.txt".

I need a efficient algorithm as I need to compare two dictionaries.


Solution

  • Here is my solution for this :

    mkdir temp
    mkdir results
    cp /usr/share/dict/american-english ~/temp/american-english-dictionary
    cp /usr/share/dict/british-english ~/temp/british-english-dictionary
    cat ~/temp/american-english-dictionary | wc -l > ~/results/count-american-english-dictionary
    cat ~/temp/british-english-dictionary | wc -l > ~/results/count-british-english-dictionary
    grep -Fxf ~/temp/american-english-dictionary ~/temp/british-english-dictionary > ~/results/common-english
    grep -Fxvf ~/results/common-english ~/temp/american-english-dictionary > ~/results/unique-american-english
    grep -Fxvf ~/results/common-english ~/temp/british-english-dictionary > ~/results/unique-british-english