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COMPARE(1L) Schily's USER COMMANDS COMPARE(1L) NAME compare - fast binary comparison of two files SYNOPSIS compare [ options ] file1 file2 DESCRIPTION Compare examines one file and standard in, or two files on a byte by byte basis, and prints the file position of the first difference it finds, first in decimal and then in hexadecimal, followed by the dif- fering byte content in hexadecimal and as quoted character. Compare is similar to the UNIX utility cmp(1) but faster. The lines count from 1, the byte offset counts from 0. This is a devi- ation from the UNIX cmp(1) utility, which counts byte offsets beginning from 1. OPTIONS Note all options can be abbreviated to their first letter. -all, -a, -long, -l Do not stop comparing the files if the first difference is found. -lines, -L Count lines while comparing data. This slows down the process of comparison by a factor of two. The line count starts after the optional initial skip on a file. b=# begin=# Start comparing at byte n, otherwise at byte 0. b1=# begin1=# Start comparing file 1 at byte n, otherwise at byte 0. b2=# begin2=# Start comparing fle 2 at byte n, otherwise at byte 0. c=# count=# Stops after comparing n bytes, otherwise if the first files en- counters EOF. -silent Does not print messages, just returns the exit code. -help Prints a short summary of the compare options and exists. -version Prints the compare version number string and exists. NOTES numbers in the options begin=#, begin1=#, begin2=#, and count=# are as- sumed to be bytes. However typing the character 'b' after the number means blocks (512 bytes). (E.g. begin=6b count=1000b). Other suffixes may used as for the bs= option in sdd(1) 'k' means 1024 bytes, 'm' means 1024 KBytes. BUGS Not known. HISTORY compare(1) was initially written by Joerg Schilling in 1985 and has been maintained ever since by Joerg Schilling. AUTHORS Joerg Schilling and the schilytools project authors. Mail bugs and suggestions to: schilytools@mlists.in-berlin.de or open a ticket at: https://codeberg.org/schilytools/schilytools/issues The mailing list archive may be found at: https://mlists.in-berlin.de/mailman/listinfo/schilytools-mlists.in- berlin.de SOURCE DOWNLOAD The source code for compare is included in the schilytools project and may be retrieved from the schilytools project at Codeberg at: https://codeberg.org/schilytools/schilytools/ The download directory is: https://codeberg.org/schilytools/schilytools/releases Joerg Schilling 2022/07/17 COMPARE(1L)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | NOTES | BUGS | HISTORY | AUTHORS | SOURCE DOWNLOAD
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