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awktext-processingline-count

How to compare number of lines of two files using Awk

I am new to awk and need to compare the number of lines of two files. The script shall return true, 

if lines(f1) == (lines(f2)+1)

otherwise false. How can I do that?

Best regards

Solution

  • If it has to be awk:

    awk 'NR==FNR{x++} END{ if(x!=FNR){exit 1} }' file1 file2

    The varibale x is incremented and contains the number of line of file1 and FNR contains the number of file2. At the end, both are compared and the script is exited 0 or 1.

    See an example:

    user@host:~$ awk 'NR==FNR{x++} END{ if(x!=FNR){exit 1} }' shortfile longfile
user@host:~$ echo $?
1
user@host:~$ awk 'NR==FNR{x++} END{ if(x!=FNR){exit 1} }' samefile samefile
user@host:~$ echo $?
0