Then write a separate script (much simpler) to compare the lists of file names and checksums from the two hosts, to report (1) files on A not on B, (2) files on B not on A, and (3) files with same name on each host but different content.

Bear in mind that the only reason you would need to write a perl script to do this is so you could do it easily on the windows machines. The standard tools on any unix box are already on hand to do it all with a couple simple command lines:

# on host.A:
find /base/dir/path -type f -print0 | xargs -0 md5 > host.A.checksum.l
+ist

# and likewise on host.B, then put both list files in one place and tr
+y:

diff host.A.checksum.list host.B.checksum.list
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Actually, these tools (as well as a couple different Bourne-like shells, bash and ksh) have been ported to Windows (look for Cygwin, AT&T Research Labs "UWIN", maybe others), so you could do shell commands like the ones above on all your machines.

In case diff makes the list comparison a bit too opaque for you, I posted a handy list-compare utility that might help with the last step, and posted it here: cmpcol.

(update: It may be that I have misread your post. For the case of the same file name existing on two hosts, the plan I suggested will only report whether they are identical or not. If you actually want to describe the nature of differences, this plan will at least tell you which files need to be inspected in closer detail, which will save you a lot of time and trouble. Ideally, you would have just a few pairs of files that need to be fetched into a common location, and you can use "diff" on them, or whatever.)

Yes that is exactly what I want to do but I was trying not to spread my code around, I wanted a single script to do the lot.

Maybe that is not going to be possible???

I will check out the ports of the unix commands.

Many Thanks.

I wanted a single script to do the lot

With the unix tools installed on all machines, you could have a single script on a single machine that does something like this:

my $find = "find /path -type f -print0 | xargs -0 md5"
for my $host ( @hostlist ) {
    open O ">$host.md5list" or die "$host.md5list: $!";
    print O `ssh $host '$find'`;
    close O;
}

# compare lists here, if you like, or use a separate script/tool to do
+ that
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That assumes that you have the appropriate authentication keys for using ssh without a password to connect to each host. Other methods are possible for the connections, of course.

(updated the script to include "xargs -0", and to run the md5 part on the remote host, where it belongs -- note the single quotes around $find in the ssh command line.)

(another update: I should confess that I have no clue how you would actually execute a shell script on a remote windows machine... good luck with that.)

You can try File::Compare.

But I myself also did something for the same purpose, and what I did was simply use DOS fc command to compare files. I also use File::Glob to get the list of files in particular directory, then loop through each file and execute fc through system(). The results can be captured through redirection:

perl -w blah.pl > result
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I have used File::Compare in the past but it doesn't exactly do the job here. I have files on remote machines...I don't want to have ftp them both to the local machine.

I was thinking of telneting into the remote machines and running the following:

perl -MFile::Find -e "find(sub{print qq($File::Find::name\n);},q($path))"

and capturing the output to get my list of files.

Then using telnet again to 'cat' the files and capturing the output from both machine and comparing that....which I suppose is just like using ftp in the end.

There must be a better way!!!!!?

Where do you need help with this? Have you looked at Text::Diff for example. Do you intend a traditional diff type text output, or is the real effort going into some sort of side by side GUI view of the diffs?

Comparing *nix and Windows files need not be a big issue. Just massage the line ends to be compatible before you diff, or use a diff that is insensitive to such things.

Note that there are many GUI diff tools available already - why do you need to reinvent this particular wheel?

Basically I really would like help in acertaining what method to use to compare files on remote machines. The windows machines are easy....I can map the drives....but I can't map to a unix disk. I only need to compare 'Win to Win' and 'Unix to Unix' not 'Win to Unix'. I'm looking for a generic way to compare regardless of platform.

If there are free tools available to do this then i'm all ears....i'd love to know about them as it'd save me alot of work. However they need to be free as my project will not pay for them....i've basically had to write all my own tools on this job.

You could start by googling WinDiff. There are quite a few diff tools around of various sorts - google is your friend and is free :).

---

Perl is Huffman encoded by design.

I have been tasked with writing a compare script to hilight any inconsitencies between files in production and development environments.

I'd just use a source control system like Subversion, SVK or even, if I was forced, CVS. Check in both directories and do a diff.

Pajout, you are slightly unpointed at the early morning... So, I am sorry for my previous message.