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Bytes and lines are numbered beginning with one.
The following options are available:
| |
Print each byte when a difference is found. | |
| |
Do not follow symbolic links. | |
| |
Skip num1 bytes from file1, and optionally skip num2 bytes from file2. If num2 is not specified, then num1 is applied for both file1 and file2. | |
| |
Print the byte number (decimal) and the differing byte values (octal) for each difference. | |
| |
Only compare up to num bytes. | |
| |
Print nothing for differing files; return exit status only. | |
| |
Like
| |
| |
For regular files compare file sizes first, and fail the comparison if they are not equal. | |
The optional arguments skip1 and skip2 are the byte offsets from the beginning of file1 and file2, respectively, where the comparison will begin. The offset is decimal by default, but may be expressed as a hexadecimal or octal value by preceding it with a leading ``0x'' or ``0''.
skip1 and skip2 may also be specified with SI size suffixes.
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.
In the latter case, if the
|
>1 | An error occurred. |
a b c
Compare stdin with example.txt:
$ echo -e "a " | cmp - example.txt
Same as above but introducing a change in the third byte of stdin. Show the byte number (decimal) and differing byte (octal):
$ echo -e "a " | cmp -l - example.txt 3 122 142
Compare file sizes of
example.txt
and
/boot/loader.conf
and return 1 if they are not equal.
Note that
$ cmp -z example.txt /boot/loader.conf example.txt /boot/loader.conf differ: size
Compare stdin with example.txt omitting the first 4 bytes from stdin and the first 2 bytes from example.txt:
$ echo -e "a " | cmp - example.txt 4 2
CMP (1) | September 23, 2021 |
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“ | … one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs. | ” |
— Robert Firth |