I had to recently compare two .csv exports and then report the differences between them.
Since I had done this many times before I turned to VLOOKUP and it worked like a charm. It showed me that I had x number of devices.
Then since I was curious I asked ChatGPT if it could compare two documents and report the differences. It said it could and I uploaded them both at the same time.
It thought about it and said the documents weren’t the same. This was surprising to me, because they contained exactly the same serial number information. ChatGPT said that there was an unexpected NAN character. So I asked it specifically “Are the serial numbers the same and the number of serial numbers?” It said yes. That the files contained exactly the same information except for the inclusion of the unexpected NAN character.
So the lesson here is that ChatGPT often has problems with unexpected formatting or seeing things that aren’t obvious. Which is helpful and unhelpful. It clearly had to be carefully asked how they were identical and so that word wasn’t the best choice.
Now just to be clear here, the result of using VLOOOKUP and ChatGPT to find the difference between two exported .csv (Excel compatible) files was the same. One took a little bit of knowledge, and the other a little bit of careful questioning. It is nice to be able to quickly double check your work isn’t it?