Data::Compare - compare perl data structures
use Data::Compare;
my $h = { 'foo' => [ 'bar', 'baz' ], 'FOO' => [ 'one', 'two' ] };
my @a1 = ('one', 'two');
my @a2 = ('bar', 'baz');
my %v = ( 'FOO', \@a1, 'foo', \@a2 );
# simple procedural interface
print 'structures of $h and \%v are ',
Compare($h, \%v) ? "" : "not ", "identical.\n";
# OO usage
my $c = new Data::Compare($h, \%v);
print 'structures of $h and \%v are ',
$c->Cmp ? "" : "not ", "identical.\n";
# or
my $c = new Data::Compare;
print 'structures of $h and \%v are ',
$c->Cmp($h, \%v) ? "" : "not ", "identical.\n";
Compare two perl data structures recursively. Returns 0 if the structures differ, else returns 1.
A few data types are treated as special cases:
If you compare a scalar and a Scalar::Properties, then they will be considered the same if the two values are the same, regardless of the presence of properties. If you compare two Scalar::Properties objects, then they will only be considered the same if the values and the properties match.
These are stringified before comparison, so the following will match:
$r = qr/abc/i;
$s = qr/abc/i;
Compare($r, $s);
and the following won't, despite them matching *exactly* the same text:
$r = qr/abc/i;
$s = qr/[aA][bB][cC]/i;
Compare($r, $s);
Sorry, that's the best we can do.
These are assumed not to match unless the references are identical - ie, both are references to the same thing.
Fabien Tassin fta@sofaraway.org
Copyright (c) 1999-2001 Fabien Tassin. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
Portions copyright 2003 David Cantrell david@cantrell.org.uk
Seeing that Fabien seems to have disappeared, David Cantrell has become a co-maintainer so he can apply needed patches. The licence, of course, remains the same, and all communications about this module should be CCed to Fabien in case he ever returns and wants his baby back.
perl(1), perlref(1)
