cmp(1)

cmp -- compare two files

Synopsis

cmp [-l] [-s] file1 file2 [skip1 [skip2]]

Description

The two files are compared. (If either 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 may be either 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).)

Options

-l: Print the byte number (decimal) and the differing bytes (octal) for each difference.
-s: Print nothing for differing files; return codes only.

Files

/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/uxcore.abi: language-specific message file (see LANG on environ(5)).

Diagnostics

On detecting end of file, cmp prints the following to standard error:

UX:cmp: INFO: EOF on file

If POSIX2 is set, the diagnostic message on end of file is instead:

cmp: EOF on file

Exit codes

Exit code 0 is returned for identical files, 1 for different files, and 2 for an inaccessible or missing argument.

References

comm(1), diff(1)

Notices

This command has been updated to handle files greater than 2GB.