cmp(1) User Commands cmp(1)NAMEcmp - compare two files
SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/cmp
/usr/bin/cmp [options] file1 file2 [skip1] [skip2]
ksh93
cmp [options] file1 file2 [skip1] [skip2]
DESCRIPTIONcmp compares two files file1 and file2. cmp writes no output if the
files are the same. By default, if the files differ, the byte and line
number at which the first difference occurred are written to standard
output. Bytes and lines are numbered beginning with 1.
If skip1 or skip2 are specified, or the -i option is specified, initial
bytes of the corresponding file are skipped before beginning the com‐
pare. The skip values are in bytes or can have a suffix of k for kilo‐
bytes or m for megabytes.
If either file1 or files2 is -, cmp uses standard input starting at the
current location.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-c Set default skip values for the operands skip1
--print-chars and skip2 to skip. The default value is 0.
-i Set default skip values for the operands skip1
--ignore-inital-skip and skip2 to skip. The default value is 0.
-l Write the decimal byte number and the differing
--verbose bytes (in octal) for each difference.
-s Write nothing for differing files. Return non-
--quiet|silent zero exit status only.
-man Print built-in manual page in either plain
--html text, HTML or nroff format.
--nroff
--help Print basic help information
--version Print version information
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(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 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(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 │SUNWcs │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│CSI │Enabled │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │Committed │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Standard │See standards(5). │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOcomm(1), diff(1), ksh93(1), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5),
standards(5)SunOS 5.11 28 Nov 2009 cmp(1)
