Hello Perl Monks. I'm new to Perl and having a spot of bother. I'm trying to read in two data files which contain identical data but the data is out of order. I need to make sure the data from both files is in fact identical despite the order. The code I have so far is as follows: 
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

open (FILE, "exp.log") || die;
my @array = <FILE>;
close(FILE);

print "\n\n\nExpected log read and stored";

open (FILE2, "actual.log") || die;
my @array2 = <FILE2>;
close(FILE2);

print "\n\n\nActual log read and stored\n\n\n";

my @sorted  = sort(@array);
my @sorted2 = sort(@array2);

if(@sorted eq @sorted2) {
    print "Success! Actual log and expected log contain the same data\
+n\n";}
else {
     print "Failure! Actual log and expected log contain different dat
+a\n\n";
}

#print "@sorted\n";

print "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n-------------------------------------\n\n\n\n
+\n\n";

#print "@sorted2\n";

exit;

[download]
a sample from one of the data files is as follows: 
.MAMACACHE_REGRESSION.AGT.M Type: INITIAL Status OK 
  MdMsgType            |    1 |            U8 | 1
  MdMsgStatus          |    2 |            U8 | 0
  MdSeqNum             |   10 |           U32 | 0
  MamaAppMsgType       |   18 |            U8 | 0
  MamaSenderId         |   20 |           U64 |6991275514488954478
.MAMACACHE_REGRESSION.BCO.M Type: INITIAL Status OK 
  MdMsgType            |    1 |            U8 | 1
  MdMsgStatus          |    2 |            U8 | 0
  MdSeqNum             |   10 |           U32 | 0
  MamaAppMsgType       |   18 |            U8 | 0
  MamaSenderId         |   20 |           U64 | 6991275514488954478

[download]


The idea I had was to read in the two files, sort them (thus making the out of order a non issue)then compare the newly sorted array. However the problem I'm having is when i make subtle changes to one of the files (for eg changing a number from 20 to 19) the script still believes the two files are equal and only denotes a "failure" if the one of the text files has more lines introduced. Hope this makes sense. All the best!

In reply to Comparing unordered but similar data files by gwam

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