Command Reference Guide
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STANDARD Printed by: Nora Chuang [nchuang] STANDARD
/build/1111/BRICK/man1/!!!intro.1
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c
cmp(1) cmp(1)
NAME
cmp - compare two files
SYNOPSIS
cmp [-l][-s] file1 file2 [skip1 [skip2]]
DESCRIPTION
cmp compares two files (if file1 or file2 is -, the standard input is used). Under default options, cmp
makes no comment if the files are the same; if they differ, it announces the byte and line number at which
the difference occurred. 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 maybe octal or decimal; the form of the number
is determined by the environment variable LC_NUMERIC (in the C locale, a leading 0 denotes an octal
number. See LANG on environ(5) and strtol(3C)).
cmp recognizes the following options:
-l Print the byte number (decimal) and the differing bytes (octal) for each difference (byte
numbering begins at 1 rather than 0).
-s Print nothing for differing files; return codes only.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Environment Variables
LANG determines the language in which messages are displayed. If LANG is not specified or is set to the
empty string, a default of "C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of LANG. If any internationalization variable
contains an invalid setting,
cmp behaves as if all internationalization variables are set to "C". See
environ(5).
International Code Set Support
Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.
DIAGNOSTICS
cmp returns the following exit values:
0 Files are identical.
1 Files are not identical.
2 Inaccessible or missing argument.
cmp prints the following warning if the comparison succeeds till the end of file of file1(file2) is reached.
cmp: EOF on file1(file2)
SEE ALSO
comm(1), diff(1).
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
cmp: SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3, XPG4, POSIX.2
HP-UX Release 11i: December 2000 − 1 − Section 1−−97
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