GNU cmp — compare two files byte by byte
Examples (TL;DR)
-
Find the byte number and line number of the first difference between the files:
cmp file1 file2 -
Find the byte number and differing bytes of every difference:
cmp -l file1 file2
Synopsis
cmp [OPTION]... FILE1 [FILE2 [SKIP1 [SKIP2]]]
Description
Compare two files byte by byte.
The optional SKIP1 and SKIP2 specify the number of bytes to skip at the beginning of each file (zero by default).
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
- -b, --print-bytes
print differing bytes
- -i, --ignore-initial=SKIP
skip first SKIP bytes of both inputs
- -i, --ignore-initial=SKIP1:SKIP2
skip first SKIP1 bytes of FILE1 and first SKIP2 bytes of FILE2
- -l, --verbose
output byte numbers and differing byte values
- -n, --bytes=LIMIT
compare at most LIMIT bytes
- -s, --quiet, --silent
suppress all normal output
- --help
display this help and exit
- -v, --version
output version information and exit
SKIP values may be followed by the following multiplicative suffixes: kB 1000, K 1024, MB 1,000,000, M 1,048,576, GB 1,000,000,000, G 1,073,741,824, and so on for T, P, E, Z, Y.
If a FILE is '-' or missing, read standard input. Exit status is 0 if inputs are the same, 1 if different, 2 if trouble.
Reporting Bugs
Report bugs to: bug-diffutils@gnu.org
GNU diffutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/diffutils/>
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
See Also
The full documentation for GNU is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and GNU programs are properly installed at your site, the command
info GNU
should give you access to the complete manual.
Referenced By
bzdiff(1), diff(1), diff3(1), grep(1), guestfish(1), guestfs(3), lbzdiff(1), rc(1), sdiff(1), xs(1), xzdiff(1), zdiff(1).