HP-UX Reference (11i v1 05/09) - 1 User Commands N-Z (vol 2)

sum(1) OBSOLETE sum(1)

NAME

sum - print checksum and block or byte count of ﬁle(s)

SYNOPSIS

sum [-r][-p][ﬁle]...

Remarks

sum is obsolescent and should not be used in new applications that are intended to be portable between sys-

tems. Use cksum instead (see cksum(1)).

DESCRIPTION

sum calculates and prints to standard output a checksum for each named ﬁle, and also prints the size of the

ﬁle in 512 byte blocks, rounded up.

The default algorithm is a 16-bit sum of the bytes in which overﬂow is ignored. Alternate algorithms can be

selected with the -r and -p options.

Standard input is used if no ﬁle names are given.

sum is typically used to verify data integrity when copying ﬁles between systems.

Options

sum recognizes the following options:

-r Use an alternate algorithm in which the 16-bit sum is right rotated with each byte in com-

puting the checksum.

-p Use the 32-bit cyclical redundancy check (CRC) algorithm used by cksum.

RETURN VALUE

sum returns the following values upon completion:

0 All ﬁles were processed successfully.

>0 One or more ﬁles could not be read or some other error occurred.

If an inaccessible ﬁle is encountered, sum continues processing any remaining ﬁles, but the ﬁnal exit status

is affected.

DIAGNOSTICS

Read error conditions are indistinguishable from end of ﬁle on most devices; check the block or byte count.

WARNINGS

This command is likely to be withdrawn from X/Open standards. Applications using this command might

not be portable to other vendors’ platforms. The usage of cksum(1) is recommended.