Hey folks! I'm in need of a desktop tool or a script that can handle massive lists—think 50,000 to over 100,000 lines. Most web-based solutions I've found can only process up to about 7,000 lines, which just doesn't cut it for me. I'd love something that can take two lists (let's call them A and B) and give me results showing:
- Only items in A that aren't in B
- Only items in B that aren't in A
- The items that are common to both lists
- A deduplicated master list that combines unique items from both A and B.
I'm looking for either a Python-based GUI app or a simple, effective script that won't freeze up with big datasets. If I end up coding it myself, what's the best way to manage memory efficiently with 100k lines? I know that using sets is faster than lists, but are there specific libraries like Polars or Pandas you'd recommend for building a small utility?
5 Answers
If your data is sorted, using commands like sort & comm can simplify things. If you're on a Linux machine or using WSL, that's an easy fix! It's efficient, just make sure your lists are sorted beforehand.
I’d suggest putting your lists into two database tables using Python with sqlite3. It’s perfect for SQL queries and handles large datasets excellently—even 100k lines isn’t that much. Databases are specifically built for these types of searches.
You could keep it straightforward with a hashmap to find duplicates—those work well and are pretty simple to program! For 70k lines, you can just load both files into memory without too much hassle. Just remember that handling all that data is manageable if you structure your code right.
Consider using a database instead! With the types of queries you're looking to perform, almost any database tool would work well. You can create a table from a CSV and run SQL queries to get what you need. It's a great approach for handling large datasets.
Have you thought about saving a hash of each line in your lists? This way, you can save memory and quickly check duplicates. Just store the line along with its hash to a lookup and comparison becomes a lot easier.
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