Comparing Variables in python

Question

I am saving modified date and file size to a text file on separate line. I am then opening the text file, reading line by line and comparing the old modified date and file size with the new one. Even though they do match, I can't for the life of me get python to agree they are the same. What am I doing wrong and how can I correct it please?

def check(movFile):
    lastModified = "%s" % time.ctime(os.path.getmtime(movFile))
    fileSize = "%s" % os.path.getsize(movFile)
    if os.path.isfile(outFile):
        checkFile = open(outFile, "r")
        line = checkFile.readlines()
        line0 = line[0]
        line1 = line[1]
        if lastModified == line0:
            print "last modified are the same"
        if fileSize == line1:
            print "file size is the same)

and here is an example of the text file:

Mon Jul  8 12:32:16 2013
7165528

I can see that both old and new are identical printing to the shell, so not sure why python is saying they are not the same.

Answer 1

readlines() reads whole line , including EOL character. You need to strip this character before you compare or use in operator (or startswith() method:

if lastModified == line0.strip():

should work for you.

Answer 2

Try removing the white spaces using

 if lastModified.strip() == line0.strip():
        print "last modified are the same"
    if fileSize.strip() == line1.strip():
        print "file size is the same"

If this does not work, other reason could be type of data. Try converting all to string type.