compare two files in UNIX

Question

I would like to compare two files   unsorted   file1 and file2  I would like to do file2 - file1   the difference   irrespective of the line number  diff is not working

User · Answer

Most easy way  sort files with sort 1  and then use diff 1

User · Answer

There are 3 basic commands to compare files in unix    cmp   This command is used to compare two files byte by byte and as any mismatch occurs it echoes it on the screen if no mismatch occurs i gives no response  syntax  cmp file1 file2  comm   This command is used to find out the records available in one but not in another diff

User · Answer

Well  you can just sort the files first  and diff the sorted files   sort file1  gt  file1 sorted sort file2  gt  file2 sorted diff file1 sorted file2 sorted   You can also filter the output to report lines in file2 which are absent from file1   diff -u file1 sorted file2 sorted   grep         As indicated in comments  you in fact do not need to sort the files  Instead  you can use a process substitution and say   diff  lt  sort file1   lt  sort file2

User · Answer

I got the solution by using comm  comm -23 file1 file2    will give you the desired output   The files need to be sorted first anyway

[unix] compare two files in UNIX

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