Lesson - 07 : UNIX - CMP and WC Command in Unix
NAME
cmp - Compare two files, and if they differ, tells the first byte and line number where they differ.
SYNOPSIS
cmp options... FromFile [ToFile]
DESCRIPTION
'cmp' reports the differences between two files character by character, instead of line by line. As a result, it is more useful than 'diff' for comparing binary files. For text files, 'cmp' is useful mainly when you want to know only whether two files are identical. For files that are identical, 'cmp' produces no output. When the files differ, by default, 'cmp' outputs the byte offset and line number where the first difference occurs. You can use the '-s' option to suppress that information, so that 'cmp' produces no output and reports whether the files differ using only its exit status. Unlike 'diff', 'cmp' cannot compare directories; it can only compare two files.
The wc (word count) command in Unix/Linux operating systems is used to find out number of newline count, word count, byte and characters count in a files specified by the file arguments. The syntax of wc command as shown below.
wc [options] filenames
The following are the options and usage provided by the command.
wc -l : Prints the number of lines in a file.
wc -w : prints the number of words in a file.
wc -c : Displays the count of bytes in a file.
wc -m : prints the count of characters from a file.
wc -L : prints only the length of the longest line in a file.