OK. I have reworked this program (below) to use just the data manipulation capabilities of Python (training was largely the motivation). I've tried to manipulate the data just in Python and not in typical loops. One thing that may not be entirely crazy in this, IMHO, is the attempt to use built-in capabilities of the language as much as possible instead of doing it "manually".
Anyway, Python is the only language I've seen (apart from functional languages probably, but I have yet to get unconventional enough to wet my feet there) where it is possible. Still, it was not as easy as I wish it were: I've had to use 3 types of data structures (dictionaries, sets, lists) and arguably 6 "stages" (marked in comments below) to get it done. And it still dies when the source terms are not unique. And I haven't figured out the way of producing a list of dictionaries that would have this particular key as unique across all the dictionaries in this list. [Also, for some reason the advice by another poster, to use: oldl=list(orig) instead of: oldl=[x for x in orig] ..somehow didn't work. The first instruction has produced only empty lists.] #---------Code follows----------- import sys import csv from sets import Set as set class excelpoldialect(csv.Dialect): delimiter=';' doublequote=True lineterminator='\r\n' quotechar='"' quoting=0 skipinitialspace=False epdialect=excelpoldialect() csv.register_dialect('excelpol',epdialect) try: ofile=open(sys.argv[1],'rb') except IOError: print "Old file %s could not be opened" % (sys.argv[1]) sys.exit(1) try: tfile=open(sys.argv[2],'rb') except IOError: print "New file %s could not be opened" % (sys.argv[2]) sys.exit(1) titles=csv.reader(ofile, dialect='excelpol').next() orig=csv.DictReader(ofile, titles, dialect='excelpol') transl=csv.DictReader(tfile, titles, dialect='excelpol') cfile=open('cmpfile.csv','wb') titles.append('New') titles.append('RowChanged') cm=csv.DictWriter(cfile,titles, dialect='excelpol') cm.writerow(dict(zip(titles,titles))) print titles print "-------------" # 1. creating lists of old & new translations #oldl=list(orig) #newl=list(orig) oldl=[x for x in orig] newl=[x for x in transl] # oldl is a list of dictionaries like: # [{'Polish': 'Zarzadzanie', 'TermID': '5', 'English': 'Administration'}, # {'Polish': 'Zarzadzanie systemem', 'TermID': '4', 'English': 'System Administration'}, # {'Polish': 'Testowanie', 'TermID': '5', 'English': 'Testing'}] # 2. creation of intersection of sets of old and new English strings to find the common source strings oldeng=set([item['English'] for item in oldl]) neweng=set([item['English'] for item in newl]) matcheng = list(oldeng & neweng) # 3. eliminating items not containing the common source strings oldl=[x for x in oldl if x['English'] in matcheng] newl=[x for x in newl if x['English'] in matcheng] # 4. sorting lists oldl.sort(lambda a, b: cmp(a['English'], b['English'])) newl.sort(lambda a, b: cmp(a['English'], b['English'])) # 5. defining comparison function def matchpol(old,new): retval={'TermID': old['TermID'], 'English': old['English'], 'Polish': old['Polish'], 'New': new['Polish'], 'RowChanged': ''} if old['Polish'] != new['Polish']: retval['RowChanged']='CHANGED' return retval # 6. Constructing list of target dictionaries chglist=map(matchpol, oldl, newl) # 7. Writing to a target file cm.writerows(chglist) # the end.. cfile.close() ofile.close() tfile.close() -- It's a man's life in a Python Programming Association. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list