Combining rows in the product compare table HOW TO

-- HikaShop version -- : 3.2.3
-- Joomla version -- : 3.3.6

Hi,

I plan to alter the search results and add product compare functionality to the search results that are returned. I think I know how to do this. What I have a question about is the compare table that is generated via compare.php

In a normal compare table, the results are from a single category. In my case, the search + compare may return a compare table that has products from two different categories. This gives me my list of custom fields, but I get too many fields returned. For example I have a product field for GLOVE COLOR and another field for JACKET COLOR... so if I search for "blue" then compare a jacket and a glove, I get both product fields (two different rows) in my compare table, when I would like to have just a single row in the table called COLOR with the values from each of GLOVE COLOR and JACKET COLOR displayed in that single row. Please understand that the GLOVE COLOR field will be null for a jacket and the JACKET COLOR field will be null for a glove

So here is my question... having looked at compare.php I cannot determine how to combine two rows in the compare table. Is there any advice you can give me toward this effort?

Thanks so much,

Dennis