A simply newbie question about ndiff

[Neville Franks]

Thanks for that Emile.

One thing I've noticed now is for larger files (73,000 lines) ndiff can take
several minutes on my 1G PC, but that is another issue again. I assume the
fact that it is being interpreted has quite a bit to do with this.


"Emile van Sebille" <emile at fenx.com> wrote in message
news:ddLw8.50678$HH5.4019 at rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> Neville Franks
> > Ok thanks. I've installed 2.2 and ndiff is available but I'm still
> confused.
> > I thought that Tim's original ndiff compared files, but the one in
> difflib
> > compares lists of strings. Does this mean I somehow need to read the
> files
> > into lists of strings and then call ndiff. A short example of how to
> use
> > ndiff to compare two files would be greatly appreciated.
> >
>
> David pointed you to python22/tools/scripts/difflib.py.  In it you'll
> find this example of how to use it:
>
> def fopen(fname):
>     try:
>         return open(fname, 'r')
>     except IOError, detail:
>         return fail("couldn't open " + fname + ": " + str(detail))
>
> # open two files & spray the diff to stdout; return false iff a problem
> def fcompare(f1name, f2name):
>     f1 = fopen(f1name)
>     f2 = fopen(f2name)
>     if not f1 or not f2:
>         return 0
>
>     a = f1.readlines(); f1.close()
>     b = f2.readlines(); f2.close()
>     for line in difflib.ndiff(a, b):
>         print line,
>
>     return 1
>
>
> You could then say something like:
>
> fcompare(r'c:\CrunchyFrog.txt', r'c:\CrunchyFfruug.txt')
>
> Assuming-you-were-casting-Peter-Sellers-in-a-skit-ly y'rs,
>
>
> --
>
> Emile van Sebille
> emile at fenx.com
>
> ---------
>