Are two text files identical except lines that start with special characters C#-CodePudding

I have two text files that represent settings of the same computer, however I am creating them at different times so the row of the date will always change. Since this will be on multiple computers, I cannot rely on the row number, however I do know that the unnecessary info lines to check the difference is ;.
How do I compare and say if the two files are identical efficiently but ignore lines that start with ; in the compresence?

CodePudding user response：

You can use following LINQ query:

var file1Lines = File.ReadLines(path1).Where(l => !l.StartsWith(";"));
var file2Lines = File.ReadLines(path2).Where(l => !l.StartsWith(";"));
bool identical = file1Lines.SequenceEqual(file2Lines);

SequenceEqual takes the order into account. If that's not desired use a HashSet<T>:

bool identical = file1Lines.ToHashSet().SetEquals(file2Lines);

If you want to compare in a case insensitive manner, so treat A same as a, you have to pass StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase to ToHashSet (or to SequenceEqual).