from difflib import Differ namebase='AutoCompleteWindow' fname = namebase + '.py' ofile = open('diff23-'+namebase+'.txt', 'w') # if this file is run with F5, output will be in same directory f27 = open('f:/python/dev/py27/Lib/idlelib/' + fname).readlines() f33 = open('f:/python/dev/py33/Lib/idlelib/' + fname).readlines() for line in Differ().compare(f27, f33): print(line, end='', file=ofile)