Re: A simple Comparison

in reply to A simple Comparison

If you compare them using eq or ==, all you're doing is comparing their values as references. And since they're two different objects--ie. not references to the same object--they're two different references. So they won't be equal.

To do a proper object comparison, you'll need to write a method that compares two of your objects. One possibility would be to serialize the objects and compare the serialized strings:

    my $obj1 = new Obj;
    my $obj2 = new Obj;

    ## The two objects above are now equal, let's say.
    ## Serialize them, then compare the serialized
    ## data.

    use Storable qw/freeze/;
    if (freeze($obj1) eq freeze($obj2)) {
        ## They're the same.
    }

In fact, you could even use overload to overload the comparison operator so that the proper comparison happens automagically:

    package Obj;
    use Storable qw/freeze/;
    use overload '==' => \&compare;

    sub compare { return freeze($_[0]) eq freeze($_[1]) }

Now you can just say:

    if ($obj1 == $obj2) {
        # They're the same.
    }