6.7 filecmp -- File and Directory Comparisons

The filecmp module defines functions to compare files and directories, with various optional time/correctness trade-offs.

The filecmp module defines the following functions:

cmp(	f1, f2[, shallow[, use_statcache]])

Compare the files named f1 and f2, returning True if they seem equal, False otherwise.

Unless shallow is given and is false, files with identical os.stat() signatures are taken to be equal. Changed in version 2.3: use_statcache is obsolete and ignored..

Files that were compared using this function will not be compared again unless their os.stat() signature changes.

Note that no external programs are called from this function, giving it portability and efficiency.

cmpfiles(

dir1, dir2, common[, shallow[, use_statcache]])

Returns three lists of file names: match, mismatch, errors. match contains the list of files match in both directories, mismatch includes the names of those that don't, and errros lists the names of files which could not be compared. Files may be listed in errors because the user may lack permission to read them or many other reasons, but always that the comparison could not be done for some reason.

The common parameter is a list of file names found in both directories. The shallow and use_statcache parameters have the same meanings and default values as for filecmp.cmp().

Example:

>>> import filecmp
>>> filecmp.cmp('libundoc.tex', 'libundoc.tex')
True
>>> filecmp.cmp('libundoc.tex', 'lib.tex')
False

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Python Library Reference

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Release 2.4, documentation updated on 29 November 2004.