In Perl, is there a built in way to compare two arrays for equality?

Question

I have two arrays of strings that I would like to compare for equality:

my @array1 = (\"part1\", \"part2\", \"part3\", \"part4\");
my @array2 = (\"part1\", \         


        

Answer 1

Not built-in, but there is Array::Compare.

This is one of the operations that's left out of the Perl core for what I believe are didactic reasons -- that is, if you're trying to do it, there's probably something wrong. The most illustrative example of this, I think, is the absence of a core read_entire_file function; basically, providing that function in the core would lead people to think it's a good idea to do that, but instead, Perl is designed in a way that gently nudges you toward processing files line-at-a-time, which is generally far more efficient and otherwise a better idea, but novice programmers are rarely comfortable with it and they need some encouragement to get there.

The same applies here: there is probably a much better way to make the determination you're trying to accomplish by comparing two arrays. Not necessarily, but probably. So Perl is nudging you to think about other ways of accomplishing your goal.