spreadsheet comparison

binary_dreamer · 07-08-2008, 02:21 AM

Hi.
I got an open office spreadsheet that has two columns. One column (A) has some elements and the column B has the name of the elements.
that spreadsheet gets updated every day.
I need to go once per week and find out which lines have been updated and post them out. Is there an easy way to compare two spreadsheets and find out which lines have been added?

Mr. C. · 07-08-2008, 02:51 AM

Export as CSV or text, and use the command line program diff to show you the differences.

binary_dreamer · 07-08-2008, 05:32 AM

hi thanks a lot for your quick reply. let's say that i got both files in home/binary
fileA.csv
fileB.csv
Will you be able to tell me how the synatx works for the diff in the csv?

colucix · 07-08-2008, 07:08 AM

man diff explains it all, e.g. do simply

Code:

diff fileA.csv fileB.csv

If you want to perform your task automatically, you may consider python and the xlrd module, an excellent piece of software to manage excel files.

matthewg42 · 07-08-2008, 07:59 AM

diff output is a little weird until you learn what it means. sdiff (side-by-side diff) is often easier to visualise, and there are some very nice graphical diff programs like kompare which might help.

Diff tools aisde, and depending on the sort of changes you get in the data, it might be easier to do a little magic within oocalc, or at worst case with a macro.

If you can post some example data - a before, after and when you expect the sheet to tell you - I might be able to help knock up something for you.