I have two files I need to create a third file (file3) that contains third field in file2 appended to the beginning of the matching record of file1. If there is no match, the inserted value = the value not found. Here is an example of file1 “$AAA”,”SYSA”,”VALU1” “$ABA”,”SYSA”,”VALU1” “0AAA”,”SYSA”,”VALU1” “2AAA”,”SYSA”,”VALU1” “3AAA”,”SYSA”,”VALU1” Here is an example of file2 $AAA,1111,P1 $ABA,1111,P200 0AAA,1111,P35 3AAA,1111,P12 Here is the desired output “P1”,“$AAA”,”SYSA”,”VALU1” “P200”,“$ABA”,”SYSA”,”VALU1” “P35”,“0AAA”,”SYSA”,”VALU1” “2AAA”,“2AAA”,”SYSA”,”VALU1” “P12”,“3AAA”,”SYSA”,”VALU1” Note – in the 4th record, there was no matching value, so the output = the value that could not be found. I’m trying to use gawk. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I read file2 into an associative array. Since file2's fields are not surrounded by double quotes, that's what this line is for: a["\""$3"\""]="\""$1"\"" Let me know if you have any questions. #!/bin/ksh awk ' BEGIN { FS=","; while(getline < "file2" > 0) a["\""$3"\""]="\""$1"\"" } { for (c in a) if(a[c] == $1) { bf=c break } else bf=$1 printf("%s,%s\n", bf, $0) } ' file11

Thank you for your help. I'm getting a syntax error ( I think it is the version of AWK). I will play around with it.