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PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | STDIN | INPUT FILES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS | STDOUT | STDERR | OUTPUT FILES | EXTENDED DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS | APPLICATION USAGE | EXAMPLES | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT |
COMM(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual COMM(1P)
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux
implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or
the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
comm — select or reject lines common to two files
comm [−123] file1 file2
The comm utility shall read file1 and file2, which should be ordered
in the current collating sequence, and produce three text columns as
output: lines only in file1, lines only in file2, and lines in both
files.
If the lines in both files are not ordered according to the collating
sequence of the current locale, the results are unspecified.
The comm utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
POSIX.1‐2008, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
The following options shall be supported:
−1 Suppress the output column of lines unique to file1.
−2 Suppress the output column of lines unique to file2.
−3 Suppress the output column of lines duplicated in file1 and
file2.
The following operands shall be supported:
file1 A pathname of the first file to be compared. If file1 is
'−', the standard input shall be used.
file2 A pathname of the second file to be compared. If file2 is
'−', the standard input shall be used.
If both file1 and file2 refer to standard input or to the same FIFO
special, block special, or character special file, the results are
undefined.
The standard input shall be used only if one of the file1 or file2
operands refers to standard input. See the INPUT FILES section.
The input files shall be text files.
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
comm:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization
variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions
volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization
Variables for the precedence of internationalization
variables used to determine the values of locale
categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of
all the other internationalization variables.
LC_COLLATE
Determine the locale for the collating sequence comm
expects to have been used when the input files were sorted.
LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of
bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte
as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input
files).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the
format and contents of diagnostic messages written to
standard error.
NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the
processing of LC_MESSAGES.
Default.
The comm utility shall produce output depending on the options
selected. If the −1, −2, and −3 options are all selected, comm shall
write nothing to standard output.
If the −1 option is not selected, lines contained only in file1 shall
be written using the format:
"%s\n", <line in file1>
If the −2 option is not selected, lines contained only in file2 are
written using the format:
"%s%s\n", <lead>, <line in file2>
where the string <lead> is as follows:
<tab> The −1 option is not selected.
null string
The −1 option is selected.
If the −3 option is not selected, lines contained in both files shall
be written using the format:
"%s%s\n", <lead>, <line in both>
where the string <lead> is as follows:
<tab><tab>
Neither the −1 nor the −2 option is selected.
<tab> Exactly one of the −1 and −2 options is selected.
null string
Both the −1 and −2 options are selected.
If the input files were ordered according to the collating sequence
of the current locale, the lines written shall be in the collating
sequence of the original lines.
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
None.
None.
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 All input files were successfully output as specified.
>0 An error occurred.
Default.
The following sections are informative.
If the input files are not properly presorted, the output of comm
might not be useful.
If a file named xcu contains a sorted list of the utilities in this
volume of POSIX.1‐2008, a file named xpg3 contains a sorted list of
the utilities specified in the X/Open Portability Guide, Issue 3, and
a file named svid89 contains a sorted list of the utilities in the
System V Interface Definition Third Edition:
comm −23 xcu xpg3 | comm −23 − svid89
would print a list of utilities in this volume of POSIX.1‐2008 not
specified by either of the other documents:
comm −12 xcu xpg3 | comm −12 − svid89
would print a list of utilities specified by all three documents,
and:
comm −12 xpg3 svid89 | comm −23 − xcu
would print a list of utilities specified by both XPG3 and the SVID,
but not specified in this volume of POSIX.1‐2008.
None.
None.
cmp(1p), diff(1p), sort(1p), uniq(1p)
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 8, Environment
Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information
Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open
Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open
Group. (This is POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1
applied.) In the event of any discrepancy between this version and
the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and
The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original
Standard can be obtained online at http://www.unix.org/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the
source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2013 COMM(1P)
Pages that refer to this page: cmp(1p), diff(1p), join(1p), sort(1p), uniq(1p)