


File::Compare(3p)Perl Programmers Reference GuidFile::Compare(3p)


NAME
       File::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
       handle.  It is exported from File::Compare by default.

       File::Compare::cmp is a synonym for
       File::Compare::compare.  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
       argument: 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 and its sibling functions return 0
       if the files are equal, 1 if the files are unequal, or -1
       if an error was encountered.

AUTHOR
       File::Compare was written by Nick Ing-Simmons.  Its
       original documentation was written by Chip Salzenberg.

















perl v5.10.1                2009-10-12                          1


