How to remove identical lines in one file from another, using sed?

Question

I have two files, one being a superset of the other. I want to remove the identical lines in the smaller files from the larger file.

One possible complication is that the lines contain backslashes.

How do I do this?

Answer 1

Here is my snippet:

remove_lines()
{
    # remove lines from a file 
    #  
    # $1 - source file with patterns of lines to be removed
    # $2 - destination file
    tmpfile=$(mktemp "$(dirname -- "$2")"/XXXXXXXX) &&
    grep -F -f "$1" -v -- "$2" >>"$tmpfile" &&
    mv -- "$tmpfile" "$2" &&
}

EDIT: I've just realized that there is no sed in it, but that wasn't critical, was it?

Answer 2

Try the following script;

## $1 - Small File
## $2 - Large File

sed 's/^/\//; s/$/\/d/; s/\\/\\\\/g' $1 > $HOME/sed_scpt.txt
sed 's/\\/\\\\/g' $2 | sed -f $HOME/sed_scpt.txt > $HOME/desired_output.txt

## Alternatively, you could change the 2nd line with the following;
sed -f $HOME/sed_scpt.txt $2 > $HOME/desired_output.txt

NOTE: I've used GNU sed 4.2.1.

Answer 3

The answer by @rajish using grep was close, but overlooked something: the question asked about removing identical lines. By default, grep will match strings (parts of lines).

POSIX grep has a suitable option:

-x
Consider only input lines that use all characters in the line excluding the terminating newline to match an entire fixed string or regular expression to be matching lines.

Given that, one could use grep to do this:

cp -f -p input.txt input.txt~
grep -v -x -F -f input.pat input.txt~ >input.txt

where input.pat contains the lines to be removed, and input.txt is the file to be updated.

The solution by @nvarun using sed had a similar problem, in addition to not escaping / characters in the pattern file. This example works for me, and limits the syntax to POSIX sed:

cp -f -p input.txt input.txt~
sed -e 's/\([\/]\)/\\\1/g' -e 's/^/\/^/' -e 's/$/$\/d/' input.pat > input.sed
sed -f input.sed input.txt~ >input.txt

Just to be tidy, both save the original file before updating it (POSIX cp).

input.pat

first
this is second
second/third
second\third

input.txt

first
only first should match
this is not first
this is second
the previous line said this is second
first/second/third
second/third
first\second\third
second\third

Result:

only first should match
this is not first
the previous line said this is second
first/second/third
first\second\third