comm(1)

🦋 comm(1) — bestie edition 🦋

okay so this is comm, living in the General Commands Manual, and she is genuinely one of the most underrated little icons in your toolkit. She compares two sorted files line by line, and honestly? She ate. 💅

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✨ NAME ✨

comm — Compare two sorted files 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.

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

comm [-1 ] [-2 ] [-3 ] [--output-delimiter] [-z|--zero-terminated]
[--total] [--check-order] [--nocheck-order] [-h|--help] [-V|--version]
<FILE1> <FILE2>

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Compare two sorted files line by line. That's the whole vibe. 🌸

When FILE1 or FILE2 (not both) is -, read standard input. Yes bestie, one of them can be a - and it'll slurp from stdin — just not both at once, that's the rule. 🫶

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. Three columns, three moods, one command. 👑

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -1 — suppress column 1 (lines unique to FILE1). bye bye column one 🫡
• -2 — suppress column 2 (lines unique to FILE2). column two, you're on mute 🔇
• -3 — suppress column 3 (lines that appear in both files). sorry to the shared lines, you're not invited today 💀
• --output-delimiter <STR> — separate columns with STR. You pick the little guy that sits between the columns. Cute, customizable, iconic. ✨
• -z, --zero-terminated — line delimiter is NUL, not newline. For when newlines are simply not the moment. 🧚
• --total — output a summary. Receipts. 🧾
• --check-order — check that the input is correctly sorted, even if all input lines are pairable. She's doing a vibe check on your sorting, no matter what. 🔍
• --nocheck-order — do not check that the input is correctly sorted. Living dangerously, love that for you. 🙈
• -h, --help — Print help. When you're lost, she's got you. 💖
• -V, --version — Print version. The classic. ⭐
• <FILE1> — the first file, bestie.
• <FILE2> — the second file, also bestie.

⚠️ real talk: both inputs need to be sorted. That's not a suggestion, that's the whole foundation of how she works. If the order is off, the output is off. Use --check-order if you want her to call it out, or --nocheck-order if you'd rather she mind her business. 💀

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✨ VERSION ✨

v(uutils coreutils) 0.7.0

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! this was comm (uutils coreutils) 0.7.0 — go sort your files and slay 💅🌈