Compare files with MATLAB

Question

I would like to know how could I compare two files (line by line) (*.xml, .m,.txt,...etc) using MATLAB.

file1 = \'toto.xml\';
file2 = \'titi.xml\';
         


        

Answer 1

First you can read both files by lines:

fid1 = fopen(file1, 'r');
fid2 = fopen(file2, 'r');

lines1 = textscan(fid1,'%s','delimiter','\n');
lines2 = textscan(fid2,'%s','delimiter','\n');
lines1 = lines1{1};
lines2 = lines2{1};


fclose(fid1);
fclose(fid2);

You will have 2 cell arrays lines1 and lines2. You can compare the whole arrays with

tf = isequal(lines1,lines2);

Comparing lines is not so obvious and depends on your need. What you want to do if number of lines is different? For example, to find which lines from file2 exist in file1 (independently of order) you can do:

[idx1 idx2] = ismember(lines1,lines2);
idx2(idx2==0) = [];

idx1 will be logical index representing lines in file1 that have the same lines in file2. idx2 will be numeric (position) index of where those lines located in file2 (the first occurrence).

If the number of lines are the same:

idx_same_lines = strcmp(lines1,lines2);