Compare two text files from MATLAB Command Window using FC Windows 10 file comparison command

Currently, I am using visdiff to compare two text files. I do not want the GUI popup, nor do I want to get the full visdiff output. I would like to use the Windows 10 FC command instead. In MATLAB Command Window, I can compare two text files successfully if I manually type in the two filenames:

>> !fc "ABC-BASELINE.txt" "ABC.txt"
Comparing files 0114 After power up initial re-pair.mat-bits-BASELINE.txt and 0114 AFTER POWER UP INITIAL RE-PAIR.MAT-BITS.TXT 
FC: no differences encountered 

I would like to do this using variables that are set to the two filenames. Something like:

>> !fc fn_baseline_str fn_str

I have not figured out how to define the two fn strings, and then how to run the ! command.

If the file does not exist, I would like to rename the file, fn_str, to fn_baseline_str.

Thank you in advance.

~Paul

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

Use the system function instead of the ! (bang) operator.

[Paul Hoffrichter]

Thanks Steven.

Answer 2

[Paul Hoffrichter]

To handle spaces in filenames, I did the following:

>> fn_baseline_str =

'A BC BASELINE.txt'

>> fn_str =

'A BC.txt'

>> fc = ['fc "' fn_baseline_str '" "' fn_str '"']

fc =

'fc "A BC BASELINE.txt" "A BC.txt"'

>>

>> system( fc )

Comparing files A BC BASELINE.txt and A BC.TXT

FC: no differences encountered

ans =

0