# File::Compare - phpMan

## 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.