List::Compare 0.33

List::Compare is a Perl module to compare elements of two or more lists.

SYNOPSIS

The bare essentials:

@Llist = qw(abel abel baker camera delta edward fargo golfer);
@Rlist = qw(baker camera delta delta edward fargo golfer hilton);

$lc = List::Compare->new(@Llist, @Rlist);

@intersection = $lc->get_intersection;
@union = $lc->get_union;

General Comments

List::Compare is an object-oriented implementation of very common Perl code (see "History, References and Development" below) used to determine interesting relationships between two or more lists at a time. A List::Compare object is created and automatically computes the values needed to supply List::Compare methods with appropriate results. In the current implementation List::Compare methods will return new lists containing the items found in any designated list alone (unique), any list other than a designated list (complement), the intersection and union of all lists and so forth. List::Compare also has (a) methods to return Boolean values indicating whether one list is a subset of another and whether any two lists are equivalent to each other (b) methods to pretty-print very simple charts displaying the subset and equivalence relationships among lists.

Except for List::Compares get_bag() method, multiple instances of an element in a given list count only once with respect to computing the intersection, union, etc. of the two lists. In particular, List::Compare considers two lists as equivalent if each element of the first list can be found in the second list and vice versa. Equivalence in this usage takes no note of the frequency with which elements occur in either list or their order within the lists. List::Compare asks the question: Did I see this item in this list at all? Only when you use List::Compare::get_bag() to compute a bag holding the two lists do you ask the question: How many times did this item occur in this list?