compare two large confgiuration files as a text file which has headings and sub headings and so on in PHP…?

Question

i have two configuration files which i need to compare using PHP. I can convert these config files to text files. So now i have to just compare two text files which has headings, sub-headings and so on. plz if any one can help me

(1)first text file---

Building configuration...

Current configuration : 458572 bytes
!

!
upgrade fpd auto

version 12.2

!
hostname IVY-DC-CORESTK-1
!
boot-start-marker
!

*interface fastethernet0/0

     ip address 1.1.1.2 255.255.255.0

     real

        inservice*
!
!
!
!

(2)text file

Building configuration...

Current configuration : 458572 bytes

!
!

upgrade fpd auto

version 12.2
!

hostname **IVY-DC-cpucpu**

!

boot-start-marker

!

 *interface fastethernet0/0

      ip address 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.0

      real

         inservice*
!

Answer 1

I think it would be better to save these files as xml or yml then you could parse them into objects and see if each individual setting is the same.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.yaml-parse.php

But to compare two text files you could hash them can check if the results match each other.

if(hash_file('md5', 'example.txt') == hash_file('md5', 'example2.txt')){
     //do something
}

http://php.net/manual/en/function.hash-file.php