Help!

[truonda]

Hi,

I have two text files that I would like to compare. Both files are supposed to be identical except one of them has an extra field appended to the end of the file; and by the end of the file I mean to the far right. Here is an example:

File1: F 20121231 01 01 150.00 0.45 ... M2D1K9
F 20121231 01 02 145.90 0.60 ... M2D1K9
File2: F 20121231 01 01 150.00 0.45 ... M2D1K9 TR-Z91
F 20121231 01 01 150.00 0.45 ... M2D1K9 TR-Z91

I initially did a text compare and TR-Z91 was in red as expected but it also turns out that some of the earlier fields are different. If I know that certain columns are going to be different (in this case, the columns with TR-Z91), can I chop off or trim those columns and then compare again? So..

File1: F 20121231 01 01 150.00 0.45 ... M2D1K9
F 20121231 01 02 145.90 0.60 ... M2D1K9
File2: F 20121231 01 01 150.00 0.45 ... M2D1K9
F 20121231 01 01 150.00 0.45 ... M2D1K9

[Aaron]

Hello,

You can define a grammar element to match on the column positions or text of the ending phrase. Is it always in the same relative column position? You could use our Columns grammar category. Please see this article and video for defining unimportant text:
http://www.scootersoftware.com/suppo..._unimportantv3

Let us know if you have any questions.

[truonda]

Thanks Aaron, I got it working.

In one compare I noticed that the software says that some characters in the column are different even though they clearly aren't e.g. both files show the character N but is in red text. Why is that?

[Aaron]

Hello,

Could you post a screenshot of the issue?

If you turn on the Line Details, Alignment Details, does everything align as you expect?
Is it only showing up as a difference since you defined the grammar item?