xref: /openbsd-src/usr.bin/cmp/cmp.1 (revision 28a4c76433ec4ea145fe75342fa90fa29463676d)

.\"     $OpenBSD: cmp.1,v 1.17 2014/01/25 22:08:08 jmc Exp $
.\"     $NetBSD: cmp.1,v 1.4 1995/09/08 03:22:55 tls Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1987, 1990, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
.\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
.\"
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.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
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.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
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.\"     @(#)cmp.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: January 25 2014 $
.Dt CMP 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm cmp
.Nd compare two files
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm cmp
.Op Fl l | Fl s
.Ar file1 file2
.Op Ar skip1 Op Ar skip2
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility compares two files of any type and writes the results
to the standard output.
By default,
.Nm
is silent if the files are the same; if they differ, the byte
and line number at which the first difference occurred is reported.
.Pp
Bytes and lines are numbered beginning with one.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl l
Print the byte number (decimal) and the differing
byte values (octal) for each difference.
.It Fl s
Silent.
Print nothing for differing files; return exit
status only.
.El
.Pp
The optional arguments
.Ar skip1
and
.Ar skip2
are the byte offsets from the beginning of
.Ar file1
and
.Ar 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
.Dq 0x
or
.Dq 0 .
.Sh EXIT STATUS
The
.Nm
utility exits with one of the following values:
.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent
.It 0
The files are identical.
.It 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
.Fl s
option has not been specified,
.Nm
writes to standard error that
.Dv EOF
was reached in the shorter
file (before any differences were found).
.It >1
An error occurred.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr diff 1 ,
.Xr diff3 1 ,
.Xr sdiff 1
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
utility is compliant with the
.St -p1003.1-2008
specification.
.Pp
The arguments
.Ar skip1
and
.Ar skip2
are extensions to that specification.
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command appeared in
.At v1 .