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The cmp command compares two files, and if they differ, tells the
first byte and line number where they differ. Its arguments are as
follows:
cmp options... from-file [to-file]
The file name `-' is always the standard input. cmp also
uses the standard input if one file name is omitted.
An exit status of 0 means no differences were found, 1 means some
differences were found, and 2 means trouble.
Below is a summary of all of the options that GNU cmp accepts.
Most options have two equivalent names, one of which is a single letter
preceded by `-', and the other of which is a long name preceded by
`--'. Multiple single letter options (unless they take an
argument) can be combined into a single command line word: `-cl' is
equivalent to `-c -l'.
- `-c'
- Print the differing characters. Display control characters as a
`^' followed by a letter of the alphabet and precede characters
that have the high bit set with `M-' (which stands for "meta").
- `--ignore-initial=bytes'
- Ignore any differences in the the first bytes bytes of the input files.
Treat files with fewer than bytes bytes as if they are empty.
- `-l'
- Print the (decimal) offsets and (octal) values of all differing bytes.
- `--print-chars'
- Print the differing characters. Display control characters as a
`^' followed by a letter of the alphabet and precede characters
that have the high bit set with `M-' (which stands for "meta").
- `--quiet'
- `-s'
- `--silent'
- Do not print anything; only return an exit status indicating whether
the files differ.
- `--verbose'
- Print the (decimal) offsets and (octal) values of all differing bytes.
- `-v'
- `--version'
- Output the version number of
cmp.
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