osf1 man page for cmp

cmp(1)							      General Commands Manual							    cmp(1)

NAME
       cmp - Compares two files

SYNOPSIS
       cmp [-l	| -s] file1 file2

STANDARDS
       Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry standards as follows:

       cmp:XCU5.0

       Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about industry standards and associated tags.

OPTIONS
       Prints  the  byte  number  (decimal) and the differing bytes (octal) for each difference.  Does not print data for differing files; returns
       only an exit value.

OPERANDS
       The path name of a file to be compared.	The path name of a file to be compared.

DESCRIPTION
       The cmp command compares two files.

       If file1 or file2 is - (dash), standard input is used for that file.  It is an error to specify - for both files.

       By default, the cmp command prints no information if the files are the same.  If the files differ, cmp prints  the  byte  and  line  number
       where the difference occurred.

       The  cmp  command  also specifies whether one file is an initial subsequence of the other (that is, if the cmp command reads an End-of-File
       character in one file before finding any differences).  Usually, you use the cmp command to compare nontext files and the diff  command	to
       compare text files.

       Note that bytes and lines reported by cmp are numbered from 1.

EXIT STATUS
       The  following  exit  values  are  returned: The files are identical.  The files differ.  This includes files of different lengths that are
       identical in the first part of both files.  An error occurred.

EXAMPLES
       To determine whether two files are identical, enter: cmp prog.o.bak prog.o

	      The preceding command compares the files prog.o.bak and prog.o.  If the files are identical, a message  is  not  displayed.  If  the
	      files differ, the location of the first difference is displayed.	For instance: prog.o.bak prog.o differ:  byte 5, line 1

	      If  the  message	cmp:  EOF on prog.o.bak is displayed, then the first part of prog.o is identical to prog.o.bak, but there is addi-
	      tional data in prog.o.

	      If the message cmp: EOF on prog.o is displayed, it is prog.o.bak that is the same as prog.o but also  contains  addition	data.	To
	      display each pair of bytes that differ, enter: cmp -l prog.o.bak prog.o

	      This  compares the files and then displays the byte number (in decimal) and the differing bytes (in octal) for each difference.  For
	      example, if the fifth byte is octal 101 in prog.o.bak and 141 in prog.o, then the cmp command displays: 5 101 141
	       .
	       .
	       .

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The following environment variables affect the execution of cmp: Provides a default value for the internationalization variables  that  are
       unset or null. If LANG is unset or null, the corresponding value from the default locale is used.  If any of the internationalization vari-
       ables contain an invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none of the variables had been defined.  If set to a  non-empty  string  value,
       overrides  the  values of all the other internationalization variables.	Determines the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes
       of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multibyte characters in arguments).  Determines the locale for the  for-
       mat  and  contents  of  diagnostic messages written to standard error.  Determines the location of message catalogues for the processing of
       LC_MESSAGES.

SEE ALSO
       Commands:  comm(1), bdiff(1), diff(1), diff3(1), sdiff(1)

       Standards:  standards(5)

																	    cmp(1)