File::Compare - Compare files or filehandles

- NAME
- SYNOPSIS
- DESCRIPTION
- RETURN
- AUTHOR

# 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.

File::Compare - Compare files or filehandles