File-Canonicalizer

Sometimes files must be compared semantically, that is their contents,
not their forms are to be compared.
Sometimes files must be unified and cleaned from any cosmetic additions.
Sometimes a kind of file changes (contents or form) must be recognized.
This module might be useful for such tasks.

The module File::Canonicalizer works with ASCII files and allows to converse
files to a canonicalized form.
Choice of conversion steps is flexible and can be adjusted to individual kinds
of files.
   file_canonicalizer ( <input_file>                                   # default is STDIN
                      , <output_file>                                  # default is STDOUT 
                      , remove_comments_started_with_<regular_express> # if empty, ignore comments
                      , 'replace_adjacent_tabs_and_spaces_with_1_space'
                      , 'replace_adjacent_slashes_with_single_slash'
                      , 'remove_white_characters_from_line_edges'
                      , 'remove_empty_lines'
                      , 'convert_to_lowercased'
                      , 'remove_leading_zeroes_in_numbers'
                      , 'sort_lines_lexically'
                      , <replaced_substring>
                      , <replacing_substring> );

All parameters, beginning with the 3rd, are interpreted as boolean values
true or false. A corresponding action will be executed only if its parameter value is true.
This means, that each of literals between apostrophes '' can be shortened to
single arbitrary character or digit 1-9.

List of parameters can be shortened, that is any amount of last parameters can be skipped.
In this case the actions, corresponding skipped parameters, will not be executed.

EXAMPLES

Read from STDIN, write to STDOUT and remove all strings, beginning with '#' :

   file_canonicalizer ('','','#');

Create canonicalized cron table (on UNIX/Linux) in any of equivalent examples:

   file_canonicalizer('path/cron_table','/tmp/cron_table.canonic','#',4,5,'e','empty_lin','',9,'sort');
   file_canonicalizer('path/cron_table','/tmp/cron_table.canonic','#',4,5, 6,    7,       '',9, 10);
   file_canonicalizer('path/cron_table','/tmp/cron_table.canonic','#',1,1, 1,    1,       '',1, 1);


INSTALLATION

To install this module, run the following commands:

	perl Makefile.PL
	make
	make test
	make install

SUPPORT AND DOCUMENTATION

After installing, you can find documentation for this module with the
perldoc command.

    perldoc File::Canonicalizer

You can also look for information at:

    RT, CPAN's request tracker (report bugs here)
        http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=File-Canonicalizer

    AnnoCPAN, Annotated CPAN documentation
        http://annocpan.org/dist/File-Canonicalizer

    CPAN Ratings
        http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/File-Canonicalizer

    Search CPAN
        http://search.cpan.org/dist/File-Canonicalizer/


LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2013 Mart E. Rivilis

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the the Artistic License (2.0).

Disclaimer of Warranty: THE PACKAGE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER
AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES.
THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT ARE DISCLAIMED TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY
YOUR LOCAL LAW. UNLESS REQUIRED BY LAW, NO COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR
CONTRIBUTOR WILL BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THE PACKAGE,
EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.