xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/comm/comm.1 (revision 1669d8afc64812c8d2d1d147ae1fd42ff441e1b1)
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35.\"     From: @(#)comm.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
36.\" $FreeBSD$
37.\"
38.Dd January 26, 2005
39.Os
40.Dt COMM 1
41.Sh NAME
42.Nm comm
43.Nd select or reject lines common to two files
44.Sh SYNOPSIS
45.Nm
46.Op Fl 123i
47.Ar file1 file2
48.Sh DESCRIPTION
49The
50.Nm
51utility reads
52.Ar file1
53and
54.Ar file2 ,
55which should be
56sorted lexically, and produces three text
57columns as output: lines only in
58.Ar file1 ;
59lines only in
60.Ar file2 ;
61and lines in both files.
62.Pp
63The filename ``-'' means the standard input.
64.Pp
65The following options are available:
66.Bl -tag -width indent
67.It Fl 1
68Suppress printing of column 1.
69.It Fl 2
70Suppress printing of column 2.
71.It Fl 3
72Suppress printing of column 3.
73.It Fl i
74Case insensitive comparison of lines.
75.El
76.Pp
77Each column will have a number of tab characters prepended to it
78equal to the number of lower numbered columns that are being printed.
79For example, if column number two is being suppressed, lines printed
80in column number one will not have any tabs preceding them, and lines
81printed in column number three will have one.
82.Pp
83The
84.Nm
85utility assumes that the files are lexically sorted; all characters
86participate in line comparisons.
87.Sh ENVIRONMENT
88The
89.Ev LANG ,
90.Ev LC_ALL ,
91.Ev LC_COLLATE ,
92and
93.Ev LC_CTYPE
94environment variables affect the execution of
95.Nm
96as described in
97.Xr environ 7 .
98.Sh EXIT STATUS
99.Ex -std
100.Sh SEE ALSO
101.Xr cmp 1 ,
102.Xr diff 1 ,
103.Xr sort 1 ,
104.Xr uniq 1
105.Sh STANDARDS
106The
107.Nm
108utility conforms to
109.St -p1003.2-92 .
110.Pp
111The
112.Fl i
113option is an extension to the
114.Tn POSIX
115standard.
116.Sh HISTORY
117A
118.Nm
119command appeared in
120.At v4 .
121.Sh BUGS
122Input lines are limited to
123.Dv LINE_MAX
124(2048) characters in length.
125