but smaller changes remain

If small enough, perhaps something like Text::Levenshtein might help to flag up possible candidates.

Is there a smarter way

I can tell from your posts here that you are experienced enough to know this, so for the benefit of other readers I'll just mention that sometimes the smartest approach is to burn the entire edifice to the ground, let its ashes be dispersed by the four winds and start afresh.

🦛

In reply to Re: [OT] Finding similar program code by hippo
in thread [OT] Finding similar program code by afoken

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