comparing text files

[Guest]

hey all,

what are some straightfoward ways to compare 2 text files to see if there
are any differences?

thanks,
rodchar

 

[Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu]

what are some straightfoward ways to compare 2 text files to see if there
are any differences?

You want an exact comparison, or you want to perform a diff with a delta
list?


--
Chad Z. Hower (a.k.a. Kudzu) - http://www.hower.org/Kudzu/
"Programming is an art form that fights back"

Make your ASP.NET applications run faster
http://www.atozed.com/IntraWeb/

 

[Cor Ligthert]

Rodchar,

When you only want to know if they are unequal

Than my way to go will be:

First check if the length is unequal using the fileinfo, when they are
unequal probably you catch than more than 80%

To check if they are real equal, read it as two files with only readtoend.

And because it are strings a simple a = b should be enough

(When the files are to long you can do a readline and than match everytime
the line and exit when not true).

Equal files will take the longest time in this method.

Justs my idea

Cor

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

what are some straightfoward ways to compare 2 text files to see if there
are any differences?

First, check if the files have the same length ('File.Length' or 'FileLen').
If the length is different, the file's contents are different. If the file
lengths are equal, read the data from both files line-by-line or blockwise
and compare the lines/blocks:

Reading a text file line-by-line or blockwise with a progress indicator
<URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/dotnet/faqs/?id=readfile&lang=en>

 

[Guest]

i think i'm wanting exact.

say textfile1 has the word "new" in it.
and textfile2 has the word "old" in it.

what's a delta list?

 

[Guest]

thanks for the great help everyone.

 

[WhoopDing]

If InStr(File.OpenText(filename).ReadToEnd, txtFind.Text)