Comparison function that compares two text files in Unix

Question

I was wondering if anyone could tell me if there is a function available in unix, bash that compares all of the lines of the files. If they are different it should output true/f

Answer 1

You could do an md5 on the two files, then compare the results in bash.

No Unix box here to test, but this should be right.

#!/bin/bash

md1=$(md5 file1);
md2=$(md5 file2);

if [ $md1 -eq $ $md2 ]; then
  echo The same
else
  echo Different
fi