I recently had to set up a new Windows Server 2003 machine. The setup process
was straightforward until I installed Perl. You can call me old fashioned, but
I prefer not to run a setup application or use an .msi file to install Perl.
Instead, I choose to copy Perl from another machine. Essentially, I simply copied
the Perl directory from one machine to another.
Several days later, I discovered a problem. The copy process was successful, but I had copied the Perl directory from the wrong machine. As a result, a couple of files were missing and a couple of others were slightly different. Usually, it wouldn't be too much of a problem to hunt down such discrepancies. However, the Perl directory consists of more than 6000 files. So, to ensure that I knew what files were different between machines, I needed a tool that could compare directories. I decided to write a Perl script to do the job. To write this script, I had to determine which algorithm to use, then implement that algorithm. . . .
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