pythonfilecompare

Best way to check new-line-independent-identity of 2 files with python

I tried 

filecmp.cmp(file1,file2)

but it doesn't work since files are identically except for new line characters. Is there an option for that in filecmp or some other convenience function/library or do I have to read both files line by line and compare those?

Solution

  • I think a simple convenience function like this should do the job:

    from itertools import izip

def areFilesIdentical(filename1, filename2):
    with open(filename1, "rtU") as a:
        with open(filename2, "rtU") as b:
            # Note that "all" and "izip" are lazy
            # (will stop at the first line that's not identical)
            return all(myprint() and lineA == lineB
                       for lineA, lineB in izip(a.xreadlines(), b.xreadlines()))