Hi,
Why you add an empty line after the left / , does fc output start
by empty line , if not try
if($diff_abs =~
/^Comparing files $abs_file and $prev_abs$
^\*\*\*\*\* $abs_file$
..
..
..
/omi ...etc
>
>Hello
>
>I have a perl script that runs a software build on NT4. The final stage
>of this build creates a binary file called "gsm_gp_flash.abs". I want to
>compare this to the previous instance of this file to see if anything
>has changed. These *.abs files contain a date stamp, so even running a
>diff utility on the 2 files will report a difference.
>
>If I run NT's "fc" command on 2 of the files that were built using
>exactly the same source fles (so in effect are the same apart from the
>date stamp of when they were built) the difference looks like this (note
>there is a blank line at the end of the output as well)
>
>Comparing files ..\OBJ\gsm_gp_flash.abs and ..\OBJ\GSM_GP_FLASH_PREV.ABS
>
>***** ..\OBJ\gsm_gp_flash.abs
>%6.6s %9.9s
>Sep 11 2002
>20:26:10
>Disconnecting...
>***** ..\OBJ\GSM_GP_FLASH_PREV.ABS
>%6.6s %9.9s
>Sep 10 2002
>20:25:34
>Disconnecting...
>*****
>
><---end of output
>
>If that's all that gets output (allowing for different dates/times) then
>I know there's no need to retest the *.abs file.
>
>Now the trouble I'm having is that I can' get what I thought would be a
>relativly strightforward pattern matching exercise to work. The snippet
>of the perl script that collects the diff output and does the test is
>
>my $prev_abs="..\\obj\\gsm_gp_flash_prev.abs";
>my $abs_file="..\\obj\\gsm_gp_flash.abs";
>my $months='(Jan|Feb|Mar|Apr|May|Jun|Jul|Aug|Sep|Oct|Nov|Dec)';
>
># collect the output of NT fc (file compare) command
>$diff_abs = `fc /W $abs_file $prev_abs 2>&1`;
>
>if($diff_abs =~
>/
>^Comparing files $abs_file and $prev_abs$
>^\*\*\*\*\* $abs_file$
>^%6\.6s %9\.9s$
>^$months \d{1,2} \d\d\d\d$
>^\d\d:\d\d:\d\d$
>^Disconnecting\.\.\.$
>^\*\*\*\*\* $prev_abs$
>^%6.6s %9.9s$
>^$months \d{1,2} \d\d\d\d$
>^\d\d:\d\d:\d\d$
>^Disconnecting\.\.\.$
>^\*\*\*\*\*$
>^$
>/omi
>)
>{
> print "file only differ by embedded date\n";
>}
>
>I thought that using the /m modifier ought to allow me to delineate each
>logical line of the string with ^.....$
>
>To check I haven't made a basic goof with each line of the regular
>expression that matches each line of the output above I've taken each
>line of the output and tested them indivdually against each line of the
>regular expression like so:
>
>$_ = "Comparing files ..\OBJ\gsm_gp_flash.abs and
>...\OBJ\GSM_GP_FLASH_PREV.ABS";
>print "OK\n" if /^Comparing files $abs_file and $prev_abs$ /;
>
>...etc for each line of output, and it worked.
>
>I've also tried using the /s modifier and putting a "." at the end of
>each line to match newlines, but again I can't get it to match.
>
>I suppose I could take the approach of just checking the length of the
>$diff_abs string, it will always be a constant size for files that only
>differ by their embedded dates, but I like to know what I'm missing with
>the regular expression method. If anyone can see an obvious mistake or
>put me straight on my understanding of multiline matching modifiers I'd
>be grateful!
>
>Best wishes
>
>Reg Smith
>
>PS - if anyone was wondering why I'm calling NT's fc files compare
>utility rather than say cygwin diff or even comparing the files in perl,
>it's because cygwin diff doesn't report the actual diffs (just if they
>are different, it's a binary file) and the files are quite big to think
>about opening for reading (57 meg). Also fc with it's /W (ignore
>whitespace diffs) is actually very fast, virtually instantaneous with my
>two test files
>
>
>
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