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.