Cmp The correct title of this article is cmp . The initial letter is capitalized due to technical restrictions . This article is about the command line utility . For other uses , see CMP . cmp is a command line utility for computer systems that use a Unix operating system . It 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 . Switches cmp may be qualified by the use of the following switches , ( the long versions are in brackets ) : -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 - Outputs a help file . Return values 0 - files are identical 1 - files differ 2 - inaccessible or missing argument See also List of Unix programs diff External links Comparing and Merging Files : Invoking cmp The section of the manual of GNU cmp in the diffutils free manual . Categories : Unix software cmp the command line utility other uses CMP 