.\" Automatically generated by Pod::Man 4.14 (Pod::Simple 3.43) .\" .\" Standard preamble: .\" ======================================================================== .de Sp \" Vertical space (when we can't use .PP) .if t .sp .5v .if n .sp .. .de Vb \" Begin verbatim text .ft CW .nf .ne \\$1 .. .de Ve \" End verbatim text .ft R .fi .. .\" Set up some character translations and predefined strings. \*(-- will .\" give an unbreakable dash, \*(PI will give pi, \*(L" will give a left .\" double quote, and \*(R" will give a right double quote. \*(C+ will .\" give a nicer C++. Capital omega is used to do unbreakable dashes and .\" therefore won't be available. \*(C` and \*(C' expand to `' in nroff, .\" nothing in troff, for use with C<>. .tr \(*W- .ds C+ C\v'-.1v'\h'-1p'\s-2+\h'-1p'+\s0\v'.1v'\h'-1p' .ie n \{\ . ds -- \(*W- . ds PI pi . if (\n(.H=4u)&(1m=24u) .ds -- \(*W\h'-12u'\(*W\h'-12u'-\" diablo 10 pitch . if (\n(.H=4u)&(1m=20u) .ds -- \(*W\h'-12u'\(*W\h'-8u'-\" diablo 12 pitch . ds L" "" . ds R" "" . ds C` "" . ds C' "" 'br\} .el\{\ . ds -- \|\(em\| . ds PI \(*p . ds L" `` . ds R" '' . ds C` . ds C' 'br\} .\" .\" Escape single quotes in literal strings from groff's Unicode transform. .ie \n(.g .ds Aq \(aq .el .ds Aq ' .\" .\" If the F register is >0, we'll generate index entries on stderr for .\" titles (.TH), headers (.SH), subsections (.SS), items (.Ip), and index .\" entries marked with X<> in POD. Of course, you'll have to process the .\" output yourself in some meaningful fashion. .\" .\" Avoid warning from groff about undefined register 'F'. .de IX .. .nr rF 0 .if \n(.g .if rF .nr rF 1 .if (\n(rF:(\n(.g==0)) \{\ . if \nF \{\ . de IX . tm Index:\\$1\t\\n%\t"\\$2" .. . if !\nF==2 \{\ . nr % 0 . nr F 2 . \} . \} .\} .rr rF .\" ======================================================================== .\" .IX Title "File::Compare 3perl" .TH File::Compare 3perl "2023-11-25" "perl v5.36.0" "Perl Programmers Reference Guide" .\" For nroff, turn off justification. Always turn off hyphenation; it makes .\" way too many mistakes in technical documents. .if n .ad l .nh .SH "NAME" File::Compare \- Compare files or filehandles .SH "SYNOPSIS" .IX Header "SYNOPSIS" .Vb 1 \& use File::Compare; \& \& if (compare("file1","file2") == 0) { \& print "They\*(Aqre equal\en"; \& } .Ve .SH "DESCRIPTION" .IX Header "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. .PP File::Compare::cmp is a synonym for File::Compare::compare. It is exported from File::Compare only by request. .PP File::Compare::compare_text does a line by line comparison of the two files. It stops as soon as a difference is detected. \fBcompare_text()\fR accepts an optional third argument: This must be a \s-1CODE\s0 reference to a line comparison function, which returns 0 when both lines are considered equal. For example: .PP .Vb 1 \& compare_text($file1, $file2) .Ve .PP is basically equivalent to .PP .Vb 1 \& compare_text($file1, $file2, sub {$_[0] ne $_[1]} ) .Ve .SH "RETURN" .IX Header "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. .SH "AUTHOR" .IX Header "AUTHOR" File::Compare was written by Nick Ing-Simmons. Its original documentation was written by Chip Salzenberg.