File::Compare

File::Compare(3)       Perl Programmers Reference Guide	     File::Compare(3)



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 consid-
       ered 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 encoun-
       tered.

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



perl v5.8.8			  2001-09-21		     File::Compare(3)