cmp(1) [redhat man page]
CMP(1) BSD General Commands Manual CMP(1) NAME
cmp -- compare two files SYNOPSIS
cmp [-l | -s] file1 file2 [skip1 [skip2]] DESCRIPTION
The cmp utility compares two files of any type and writes the results to the standard output. By default, cmp is silent if the files are the same; if they differ, the byte and line number at which the first difference occurred is reported. Bytes and lines are numbered beginning with one. The following options are available: -l Print the byte number (decimal) and the differing byte values (octal) for each difference. -s Print nothing for differing files; return exit status only. The optional arguments skip1 and skip2 are the byte offsets from the beginning of file1 and file2, respectively, where the comparison will begin. The offset is decimal by default, but may be expressed as an hexadecimal or octal value by preceding it with a leading ``0x'' or ``0''. The cmp utility exits with one of the following values: 0 The files are identical. 1 The files are different; this includes the case where one file is identical to the first part of the other. In the latter case, if the -s option has not been specified, cmp writes to standard output that EOF was reached in the shorter file (before any differences were found). >1 An error occurred. SEE ALSO
diff(1), diff3(1) STANDARDS
The cmp utility is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') compatible. BSD
June 6, 1993 BSD
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cmp(1) User Commands cmp(1) NAME
cmp - compare two files SYNOPSIS
cmp [-l | -s] file1 file2 [skip1] [skip2] DESCRIPTION
The cmp utility compares two files. cmp writes no output if the files are the same. Under default options, if they differ, it writes to standard output the byte and line numbers at which the first difference occurred. Bytes and lines are numbered beginning with 1. If one file is an initial subsequence of the other, that fact is noted. skip1 and skip2 are initial byte offsets into file1 and file2 respec- tively, and can be either octal or decimal. A leading 0 denotes octal. OPTIONS
The following options are supported: -l Write the byte number (decimal) and the differing bytes (octal) for each difference. -s Write nothing for differing files. Return exit status only. OPERANDS
The following operands are supported: file1 A path name of the first file to be compared. If file1 is -, the standard input is used. file2 A path name of the second file to be compared. If file2 is -, the standard input is used. If both file1 and file2 refer to standard input or refer to the same FIFO special, block special or character special file, an error results. USAGE
See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of cmp when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte (2^31 bytes). EXAMPLES
Example 1 Comparing Files Byte for Byte The following example does a byte for byte comparison of file1 and file2: example% cmp file1 file2 0 1024 It skips the first 1024 bytes in file2 before starting the comparison. ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of cmp: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MES- SAGES, and NLSPATH. EXIT STATUS
The following error values are returned: 0 The files are identical. 1 The files are different. This includes the case where one file is identical to the first part of the other. >1 An error occurred. ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWcsu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |CSI |Enabled | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Interface Stability |Standard | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
comm(1), diff(1), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5), standards(5) SunOS 5.11 19 Jul 2006 cmp(1)