File::Compare.3pm

Langue: en

Version: 2007-12-18 (mandriva - 01/05/08)

Section: 3 (Bibliothèques de fonctions)

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.