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12 .TH COMM 1 "Mar 3, 2004"
14 comm \- select or reject lines common to two files
18 \fBcomm\fR [\fB-123\fR] \fIfile1\fR \fIfile2\fR
24 The \fBcomm\fR utility reads \fIfile1\fR and \fIfile2\fR, which must be ordered
25 in the current collating sequence, and produces three text columns as output:
26 lines only in \fIfile1\fR; lines only in \fIfile2\fR; and lines in both files.
29 If the input files were ordered according to the collating sequence of the
30 current locale, the lines written will be in the collating sequence of the
31 original lines. If not, the results are unspecified.
35 The following options are supported:
42 Suppresses the output column of lines unique to \fIfile1\fR.
51 Suppresses the output column of lines unique to \fIfile2\fR.
60 Suppresses the output column of lines duplicated in \fIfile1\fR and
67 The following operands are supported:
74 A path name of the first file to be compared. If \fIfile1\fR is \fB\(mi\fR, the
75 standard input is used.
84 A path name of the second file to be compared. If \fIfile2\fR is \fB\(mi\fR,
85 the standard input is used.
91 See \fBlargefile\fR(5) for the description of the behavior of \fBcomm\fR when
92 encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).
95 \fBExample 1 \fRPrinting a list of utilities specified by files
98 If \fIfile1\fR, \fIfile2\fR, and \fIfile3\fR each contain a sorted list of
99 utilities, the command
104 example% \fBcomm -23 file1 file2 | comm -23 - file3\fR
111 prints a list of utilities in \fIfile1\fR not specified by either of the other
117 example% \fBcomm -12 file1 file2 | comm -12 - file3\fR
124 prints a list of utilities specified by all three files. And the entry:
129 example% \fBcomm -12 file2 file3 | comm -23 -file1\fR
136 prints a list of utilities specified by both \fIfile2\fR and \fIfile3\fR, but
137 not specified in \fIfile1\fR.
139 .SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
142 See \fBenviron\fR(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
143 that affect the execution of \fBcomm\fR: \fBLANG\fR, \fBLC_ALL\fR,
144 \fBLC_COLLATE\fR, \fBLC_CTYPE\fR, \fBLC_MESSAGES\fR, and \fBNLSPATH\fR.
148 The following exit values are returned:
155 All input files were successfully output as specified.
170 See \fBattributes\fR(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
178 ATTRIBUTE TYPE ATTRIBUTE VALUE
182 Interface Stability Standard
188 \fBcmp\fR(1), \fBdiff\fR(1), \fBsort\fR(1), \fBuniq\fR(1), \fBattributes\fR(5),
189 \fBenviron\fR(5), \fBlargefile\fR(5), \fBstandards\fR(5)