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author | Fred Drake <fdrake@acm.org> | 1999-10-29 17:23:15 (GMT) |
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committer | Fred Drake <fdrake@acm.org> | 1999-10-29 17:23:15 (GMT) |
commit | c7b5b3c998b7b00939e4e34da8a608e34932b29c (patch) | |
tree | 7e40a02ecc11cdc104315a3302dee6bd3da8c8dd | |
parent | 7eaf6828cbf8c1d9a3dff534a85e81092dc50733 (diff) | |
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filecmp documentation from Moshe Zadka <moshez@math.huji.ac.il>.
-rw-r--r-- | Doc/lib/libfilecmp.tex | 40 |
1 files changed, 40 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/lib/libfilecmp.tex b/Doc/lib/libfilecmp.tex new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3d56e30 --- /dev/null +++ b/Doc/lib/libfilecmp.tex @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +\section{\module{filecmp} --- + File Comparisons} + +\declaremodule{standard}{filecmp} +\sectionauthor{Moshe Zadka}{mzadka@geocities.com} +\modulesynopsis{Compare files efficiently.} + +The \module{filecmp} module defines a function to compare files, taking all +sort of short-cuts to make it a highly efficient operation. + +The \module{filecmp} module defines the following function: + +\begin{funcdesc}{cmp}{f1, f2\optional{, shallow\optional{, use_statcache}}} +Compare the files named \var{f1} and \var{f2}, returning \code{1} +if they seem equal, \code{0} otherwise. + +Unless \var{shallow} is given and is false, files with identical +\function{os.stat()} signatures are taken to be equal. If +\var{use_statcache} is given and is true, +\function{statcache.stat()} will be called rather then \var{os.stat()}. + +Files that were compared using this function will not be compared again +unless their \function{os.stat()} signature changes. Note that using +\var{use_statcache} true will cause the cache invalidation mechanism to +fail --- the stale stat value will be used from \refmodule{statcache}'s +cache. + +Note that no external programs are called from this module giving it +portability and efficiency. +\end{funcdesc} + +Example: + +\begin{verbatim} +>>> import filecmp +>>> filecmp.cmp('libundoc.tex', 'libundoc.tex') +1 +>>> filecmp.cmp('libundoc.tex', 'lib.tex') +0 +\end{verbatim} |