This is not a Perl solution, but I use my programming text editor (TextPad) for comparisons. There are other freeware/shareware solutions. Any good editor designed for writing code will have a compare function and there will be options like: ignore indentation (or not), ignore case (or not), etc. Exact features and how the differences are displayed vary. Using the editor is nice because I've got 3 panes (the 2 files and the dif representation) already open and can cut-n-paste or whatever to get a combined version that I am happy with.

Anyway, just suggesting that you try some free trial versions of a few different program editors. You might find something that you really like without writing any code at all. Mileage varies on "how smart" the comparison is and how the comparison algorithm re-synchronizes after a block of deletions or insertions.


In reply to Re: comparing any two text files and writing the difference to a third file by Marshall
in thread comparing any two text files and writing the difference to a third file by balanunni

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.