Tribblix: manual page: cmp.1

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
respectively, 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(7) 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(7) for descriptions of the following environment
variables that affect the execution of cmp: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE,
LC_MESSAGES, 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