This function performs a comparison of two document files. The two files being compared are specified as the first two arguments. The third argument names the comparison results file that can be opened, displayed, and printed in Arbortext Editor.

The previous_file argument is the file name for one of the documents you want to compare. The current_file argument is the file name for the document that will be compared to previous_file.

The result_file argument is the file name you want to give to the comparison results document.

The return value from compare_files is 1 if it succeeded and there are differences in the two files. The return value is 0 if there are no differences in the files. The return value is -1 if it failed (for example, if an input file doesn't exist). If the return value is less than 1, then a results document isn't created and an error message is stored in the variable main::ERROR.