comm - compare two sorted files line by line
Contents
Copyright
Copyright © 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
<https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by law.
Description
Compare sorted files FILE1 and FILE2 line by line.
When FILE1 or FILE2 (not both) is -, read standard input.
With no options, produce three-column output. Column one contains lines unique to FILE1, column two
contains lines unique to FILE2, and column three contains lines common to both files.
-1 suppress column 1 (lines unique to FILE1)
-2 suppress column 2 (lines unique to FILE2)
-3 suppress column 3 (lines that appear in both files)
--check-order
check that the input is correctly sorted, even if all input lines are pairable
--nocheck-order
do not check that the input is correctly sorted
--output-delimiter=STR
separate columns with STR
--total
output a summary
-z, --zero-terminated
line delimiter is NUL, not newline
--help display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit
Comparisons honor the rules specified by 'LC_COLLATE'.
Examples
comm -12 file1 file2
Print only lines present in both file1 and file2.
comm -3 file1 file2
Print lines in file1 not in file2, and vice versa.
Name
comm - compare two sorted files line by line
Reporting Bugs
GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
See Also
join(1), uniq(1) Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/comm> or available locally via: info '(coreutils) comm invocation' GNU coreutils 9.5 April 2025 COMM(1)
Synopsis
comm [OPTION]... FILE1FILE2
