cmp(1)                                                               cmp(1)




 NAME    [Toc]    [Back]
      cmp - compare two files

 SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]
      cmp [-l] [-s] file1 file2 [skip1 [skip2]]

 DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]
      cmp compares two files (if 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 maybe 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)).

      cmp recognizes the following options:

           -l      Print the byte number (decimal) and the differing bytes
                   (octal) for each difference (byte numbering begins at 1
                   rather than 0).

           -s      Print nothing for differing files; return codes only.

 EXTERNAL INFLUENCES    [Toc]    [Back]
    Environment Variables
      LANG determines the language in which messages are displayed.  If LANG
      is not specified or is set to the empty string, a default of "C" (see
      lang(5)) is used instead of LANG.  If any internationalization
      variable contains an invalid setting, cmp behaves as if all
      internationalization variables are set to "C".  See environ(5).

    International Code Set Support    [Toc]    [Back]
      Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.

 DIAGNOSTICS    [Toc]    [Back]
      cmp returns the following exit values:

           0     Files are identical.
           1     Files are not identical.
           2     Inaccessible or missing argument.

      cmp prints the following warning if the comparison succeeds till the
      end of file of file1(file2) is reached.

           cmp: EOF on file1(file2)

 SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]
      comm(1), diff(1).




 Hewlett-Packard Company            - 1 -   HP-UX 11i Version 2: August 2003






 cmp(1)                                                               cmp(1)




 STANDARDS CONFORMANCE    [Toc]    [Back]
      cmp: SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3, XPG4, POSIX.2


 Hewlett-Packard Company            - 2 -   HP-UX 11i Version 2: August 2003