Google Sheets - Compare Differing Rows - google-sheets

Question

I have a two spreadsheets with that are practically clones of each other, however there are some differences. I would like to compare two sheets. I will take care of importing it so that it can be easier to compare.
What I am comparing are rows of information including Name, Address, Status. Over the course of time, the status has been updated in one of the sheets. I'd like to be able to identify cells within the rows that are not alike.

Answer 1

You can do that using Google Apps Script. The following code works as an example to accomplish this:
var OTHER_SPREADSHEET_ID = "OTHER_SPREADSHEET_ID";
var NUM_COLUMNS = 4;
function checkDifferences() {
var otherSheet = SpreadsheetApp.openById(OTHER_SPREADSHEET_ID).getSheetByName('Sheet1');
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActive().getSheetByName('Sheet1');
var lastRow = sheet.getLastRow();
var thisValues = sheet.getRange(1, 1, lastRow, NUM_COLUMNS).getValues();
var otherValues = otherSheet.getRange(1, 1, lastRow, NUM_COLUMNS).getValues();
for (var i=0; i<lastRow; i++) {
if (!rowsAreEqual(thisValues[i], otherValues[i])) {
// Mark row
sheet.getRange(i+1, 1, 1, NUM_COLUMNS).setBackground("yellow");
}
}
}
function rowsAreEqual(row1, row2) {
for (var i=0; i<row1.length; i++) {
if (row1[i] !== row2[i]) return false;
}
return true;
}
Simply explained, the code does the following:
Open the Spreadsheet that you want the current spreadsheet to be compared to.
For each row, if the rows differ change the background color of the "host" Spreadsheet (the Spreadsheet that has the code bound to).
Example
After executing the code (bound to the "Modified" Spreadsheet) the sheet becomes as follows:
References
Google Apps Script
SpreadsheetApp
Class Range