opensolaris man page for cmp

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)