Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!ames!lll-tis!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!ukc!warwick!cvaxa!aledm From: aledm@cvaxa.sussex.ac.uk (Aled Morris) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: cmp efficiency Summary: cmp is wrong if you say "-s" Message-ID: <494@cvaxa.sussex.ac.uk> Date: 7 Jul 88 19:42:16 GMT References: <16186@brl-adm.ARPA> <56810@sun.uucp> <3048@ccicpg.UUCP> Organization: School of Cognitive Sciences, Univ of Sussex, Brighton, UK Lines: 21 In article <3048@ccicpg.UUCP>, nick@ccicpg.UUCP (Nick Crossley) writes: >>While we're on the subject of efficiency, cmp is coded wrong. It should >>first stat the two files to be compared. If the character count is different, >>so are the files. And files tend to be different more often than the same. [...] > if the files are not the same size, cmp will tell you if they have the >same contents up to the length of the shorter (cmp will say 'EOF on file 1/2'). >I find this useful in some contexts, and would not want cmp just to give up >if the sizes differed. I never use "cmp" and to read its output, I only ever use it with "-s". If you specify this flag, cmp really ought to look at the file sizes first. Aled Morris systems programmer mail: aledm@uk.ac.sussex.cvaxa | School of Cognitive Science uucp: ..!mcvax!ukc!cvaxa!aledm | University of Sussex talk: +44-(0)273-606755 x4284 | Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QN fax: +44-(0)273-678335 | East Sussex, England "I'm living in the future/I feel wonderful/I'm tipping over backwards... I'm so ambitious/I'm looking back/I'm running a race and you're the book I read"