File::Compare(3pm)

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.