cmp(1) User Commands cmp(1)NAMEcmp - compare two files
SYNOPSIScmp [-l] [-s] file1 file2 [skip1] [skip2]
DESCRIPTION
The cmp utility compares two files. cmp will write 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
may 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 statuses only.
OPERANDS
The following operands are supported:
file1 A path name of the first file to be compared. If file1 is −,
the standard input will be used.
file2 A path name of the second file to be compared. If file2 is −,
the standard input will be 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:
example% cmp file1 file2 0 1024
does a byte for byte comparison of file1 and file2. 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_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
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │SUNWcsu │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│CSI │enabled │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │Standard │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOcomm(1), diff(1), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5), standards(5)SunOS 5.10 1 Feb 1995 cmp(1)
