How do i compare alphanumeric characters in non sequential order? - awk

Question

Currently i am using a awk script which compares numbers in non sequential order and prints the difference . It works pretty well for numbers but if i have alphanumeric characters , it doesn't seem to work well
In its current state , apart from simply comparing the numbers it does 2 things additionally :
Currently it accounts for the zeros before a number or character and compares the absolute values only ignoring zeros before a number or character
Currently If the same number or character occurs multiple times in both files , it outputs the additional occurance
i just want the script to work well for alphanumeric characters as well as currently it only seem to work well with plain numbers. Can someone please edit the script to have the desired output while also considering the above 2 conditions
Current script
awk '{k=$0+0}
NR==FNR {a[k]++; next}
!(k in a && a[k]-->0);
END {for(k in a) while(a[k]-->0) print k}' file1 file2
Example below
cat file1
1
01
001
8
2B
12
13C
027B
0027B
cat file2
1
2
08
12
13C
02B
9
27B
Expected output/result
1
1
2
9
27B
Explanation of expected output
In file1 : "1" , "01" , "001" evaluates to 1 * 3 times
In file 2 : "1" is present only once
Hence "1" is present twice in result ( 3-1 times )
"2" and "9" are exclusively present in file2 , So obviously both simply form part of output
In file1 : '027B" , "0027B" evaluates to 27B * 2 times
In file 2 - "27B" is present only once
Hence '27B" is present once in result ( 2 -1 times )
Explanation of matched items ( ones not forming part of expected output )
"8" from file1 ( line 4 )is matched with "08" from file2 ( line 3)
"12" from file1 ( line 6) is matched with "12" from file2 ( line 4)
"13C" from file1 (line 7 ) is matched with "13C" from file2 ( line 5 )
"2B" from file1 ( line 5 ) is matched with "02B" from file2 ( line 6 )
Lastly the order of items in expected output should be in ascending order like shown in my above example, lets say if the eg above had 3 in expected output it should read vertically as 1 1 2 3 9 27B

Answer 1

It should be enough to remove leading zeros when forming the key (with a special case for zero values like 0000):
/^0+$/ { k = 0 }
/[^0]/ { k = $0; sub(/^0*/, "", k) }
NR==FNR {a[k]++; next}
!(k in a && a[k]-->0);
END {for(k in a) while(a[k]-->0) print k}
$ awk -f a.awk file1 file2
2
9
27B
1
1
RE-EDIT
If you just want the values sorted numerically, pipe into sort:
$ awk -f a.awk file1 file2 | sort -n
1
1
2
3
4
5
9
27B
To output in the order as found in file2, you can remember the order in another array and then do all the printing in the END block. This version will output the values in the order of file2, with any values only in file1 printed last.
/^0+$/ { k = 0 }
/[^0]/ { k = $0; sub(/^0*/, "", k) }
NR==FNR {a[k]++; next}
{ b[FNR] = k }
!(k in a && a[k]--) { a[k] = 1 }
END {
for (i=1; i<=FNR; ++i) {
k = b[i]
while(a[k]-->0) print k
}
for (k in a) {
while(a[k]-->0) print k
}
}
$ awk -f a.awk file1 file2
1
1
2
9
27B
3
4
5