Compare two files.
The cmp utility compares two files of any type and writes the results to the
standard output. By default, cmp is silent if the files are the same; if they
differ, the byte and line number at which the first difference occurred is reported.
Syntax cmp [option..] file1 [file2 [skip1 [skip2]]] Options -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 help.
Notes
skip1 and skip2 are the number of bytes to skip in each file. SKIP
values can 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.
The offset
is decimal by default, but can be expressed as a hex or octal value by preceding
it with a leading `0x' or `0'.
info diff will return full examples for both diff and cmp
If a File is - or missing, read from standard input.
cmp exits with one of the following values:
0 The files are identical.
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 -s option has not
been specified, cmp writes to standard output that EOF was reached in the shorter file (before any differences were found).
>1 An error occurred.
“First rate people hire other first rate people. Second rate people hire third rate people. Third rate people hire fifth rate people" - André Weil
Related macOS commands:
diff - Display the differences between two files.