File::Compare(3) Perl Programmers Reference GuideFile::Compare(3)NAMEFile::Compare - Compare files or filehandles
SYNOPSIS
use File::Compare;
if (compare("file1","file2") == 0) {
print "They're equal\n";
}
DESCRIPTION
The File::Compare::compare function compares the contents
of two sources, each of which can be a file or a file han
dle. It is exported from File::Compare by default.
File::Compare::cmp is a synonym for File::Compare::com
pare. It is exported from File::Compare only by request.
File::Compare::compare_text does a line by line comparison
of the two files. It stops as soon as a difference is
detected. compare_text() accepts an optional third argu
ment: This must be a CODE reference to a line comparison
function, which returns 0 when both lines are considered
equal. For example:
compare_text($file1, $file2)
is basically equivalent to
compare_text($file1, $file2, sub {$_[0] ne $_[1]} )
RETURN
File::Compare::compare return 0 if the files are equal, 1
if the files are unequal, or -1 if an error was encoun
tered.
AUTHORFile::Compare was written by Nick Ing-Simmons. Its origi
nal documentation was written by Chip Salzenberg.
2001-02-22 perl v5.6.1 File::Compare(3)