NAME¶

cmp - compare two files byte by byte

SYNOPSIS¶

cmp [OPTION]... FILE1 [FILE2 [SKIP1 [SKIP2]]]

DESCRIPTION¶

Compare two files byte by byte.

-b --print-bytes

Print differing bytes.

-i SKIP --ignore-initial=SKIP

Skip the first SKIP bytes of input.

-i SKIP1:SKIP2 --ignore-initial=SKIP1:SKIP2

Skip the first SKIP1 bytes of FILE1 and the first SKIP2 bytes of FILE2.

-l --verbose

Output byte numbers and values of all differing bytes.

-n LIMIT --bytes=LIMIT

Compare at most LIMIT bytes.

-s --quiet --silent

Output nothing; yield exit status only.

-v --version

Output version info.

--help

Output this help.

SKIP1 and SKIP2 are the number of bytes to skip in each file. 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.

AUTHOR¶

Written by Torbjorn Granlund and David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS¶

Report bugs to <bug-gnu-utils@gnu.org>.

COPYRIGHT¶

Copyright © 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This program comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. You may redistribute copies of this program under the terms of the GNU General Public License. For more information about these matters, see the file named COPYING.

SEE ALSO¶

The full documentation for cmp is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and cmp programs are properly installed at your site, the command

info diff

should give you access to the complete manual.