Array compare?

[roscoe]

I have a project (proprietary, can't go into details, sorry) where I read in data from a server and convert it to a user friendly graphical form. It get's repeated over time and sometimes the source data will slightly change from what was previoulsy imported. My users have asked for me to do a comparison and pop up a message box with significant changes.

So far I've read the old data into an array, and imported to updated data. Now I'm stuck as to the best way to do the compare. Given that some items in the orignal import may go away over time, and new items may be added, I can't do a straight row by row compare (if something as been added in the new import, there will be an offset bewtween the two arrays)

Looking for a clever way to identify adds, deletetions, and value changes (two of the array values are start and stop time of the event, another is a value associated with that event that could change, etc...)

Again, I'd love to show an example but corporate policy doesn't allow it (the computer is on a standalone network, couldn't even copy the code over if I wanted)

Thanks in advance!

 

[roscoe]

(please disregard the spelling errors in my OP...I think my spell checker was taking a break

Let's see if I can make up "concrete" examples to describe what I want.

On Monday, I import a calendar for next Monday and get the following:
Joe, 10:00 AM Monday, 1 hr
Mary, 11:00 AM Monday, 1 hr
Fred, 1:00 PM Monday, 30 min
Joe, 1:30 PM Monday, 1 hr

On Friday, I reimport the same calendar and I get the following (with the changes in []):
Joe, 9:30 AM Monday, 30 min [earlier and shorter]
Dean, 10:00 AM Monday, 30 min [New appt, same time as Joe's original appt]
Mary, 11:00 AM Monday, 1 hr [No Change]
[Fred canceled]
Joe, 1:30 PM Monday, 1.5 hr [Longer]

What I'm looking for is to automate identifying adds, subtracts, changes, with the subtlety that there may be repeated events (ex: Joe above has two appts the same day).

If it helps with the looping logic, both arrays are in chronological order...My arrays will be on the order of 200-2000 "rows" line

Thanks...this this is really kicking my you-know-what with all of the possible "compares".