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$ cmp -b file1 file2 
file1 file2 differ: 12 byte, line 2 is 154 l 151 i

in this response what do '154' and '151' refer to?

slm
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Gopinath Pushpa Thirunavukaras
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1 Answers1

2

The GNU version of cmp (which you are using) prints the differing bytes when given the -b option. If no printable representation of the byte can be shown, cmp will display

[...] control bytes as a ^ followed by a letter of the alphabet and precede bytes that have the high bit set with M- (which stands for "meta").

(quote from the cmp manual on a GNU system).

154 in the output refers to the letter l, and 151 refers to the letter i (also visible in the output). These are octal ASCII codes (see man ascii) for the first bytes in each file that differs between the files.

Kusalananda
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