.lf 1 ./man/man1/fstrcmp.1
.\"
.\" fstrcmp - fuzzy string compare library
.\" Copyright (C) 2009, 2011 Peter Miller
.\" Written by Peter Miller <pmiller@opensource.org.au>
.\"
.\" This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
.\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
.\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
.\" (at your option) any later version.
.\"
.\" This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
.\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
.\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
.\" General Public License for more details.
.\"
.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
.\" along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
.\"
.ds n) fstrcmp
.TH \*(n) 1
.SH NAME
fstrcmp \- fuzzy comparison of strings
.if require_index \{
.\}
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B \*(n)
[ \fB\-p\fP ]
.I first\[hy]string
.I second\[hy]string
.sp 0.3
.B \*(n)
\fB\-w\fP
.I first\[hy]string
.I second\[hy]string
.sp 0.3
.B \*(n)
\fB\-a\fP
.I first\[hy]file
.I second\[hy]file
.sp 0.3
.B \*(n)
.B \-s
.I needle
.IR haystack \&...
.sp 0.3
.B \*(n)
.B \-\-version
.SH DESCRIPTION
The \*(n) command is used to
make fuzzy comparisons between strings.
The \[lq]edit distance\[rq] between the strings is printed, with 0.0
meaning the strings are utterly un\[hy]alike, and 1.0 meaning the strings
are identical.
.PP
You may need to quote the string to insulate them from the shell.
.SH OPTIONS
The \*(n) command understands the following options:
.TP 8n
\fB\-a\fP
.TP 8n
\fB\-\-files\-as\-bytes\fP
This option is used to compare two files as arrays of bytes.
See \f[I]fmemcmp\fP(3) for more information.
.TP 8n
\fB\-p\fP
.TP 8n
\fB\-\-pair\fP
This option is used to compare two strings as arrays of bytes.
This is the default.
See \f[I]fstrcmp\fP(3) for more information.
.TP 8n
.B \-s
.TP 8n
.B \-\-select
This option is used to select the closest
.I needle
from the provided
.I haystack
alternatives.
The most similar (single) choice is printed.
If none are particularly similar, nothing is printed.
See \f[I]fstrcmp\fP(3) for more information.
See below for example.
.TP 8n
\fB\-V\fP
.TP 8n
\fB\-\-version\fP
This option may be used to print the version of the \*(n) command,
and then exit.
.TP 8n
\fB\-w\fP
.TP 8n
\fB\-\-wide\-pair\fP
This option is used to compare two multi\[hy]byte character strings.
See \f[I]fstrcoll\fP(3) for more information.
.SH EXIT STATUS
The \*(n) command exits with status 1 on any error.
The \*(n) command only exits with status 0 if there are no errors.
.SH EXAMPLE
The \fI\*(n) \-\-select\fP option may be used in a shell script to
improve error messages.
.RS
.nf
.ft CW
case "$action" in
start)
    start
    ;;
stop)
    stop
    ;;
restart)
    stop
    start
    ;;
*)
    echo "$0: action \e"$action\e" unknown" 1>&2
    guess=`fstrcmp \-\-select "$action" stop start restart`
    if [ "$guess" ]
    then
        echo "$0: did you mean \e"$guess\e" instead?" 1>&2
    fi
    exit 1
    ;;
esac
.ft R
.fi
.RE
Thus, the error message frequently suggests the correct action
in the face of simple finger problems on the command line.
.SH SEE ALSO
.TP 8n
\f[I]fstrcmp\fP(3)
fuzzy comparison of strings
.TP 8n
\f[I]fstrcoll\fP(3)
fuzzy comparison of two multi\[hy]byte character strings
.TP 8n
\f[I]fstrcmpi\fP(3)
fuzzy comparison of strings, integer variation
.lf 1 ./man/man1/z_copyright.so
.\"
.\" fstrcmp - fuzzy string compare library
.\" Copyright (C) 2009 Peter Miller
.\" Written by Peter Miller <pmiller@opensource.org.au>
.\"
.\" This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
.\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
.\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
.\" (at your option) any later version.
.\"
.\" This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
.\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
.\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
.\" General Public License for more details.
.\"
.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
.\" with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
.\"
.SH COPYRIGHT
.lf 1 ./etc/version.so
.ds v) 0.7
.ds V) 0.7.D001
.ds Y) 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014
.lf 21 ./man/man1/z_copyright.so
.if n .ds C) (C)
.if t .ds C) \(co
fstrcmp version \*(v)
.br
Copyright \*(C) 2009 Peter Miller
.br
Peter Miller <pmiller@opensource.org.au>
.PP
The comparison code is derived from the fuzzy comparison functions in
GNU Gettext 0.17.  The GNU Gettext comparison functions were, in turn,
derived from GNU Diff 2.7.
.PP
Copyright \*(C) 1988-2009 Free Software Foundation
.lf 143 ./man/man1/fstrcmp.1