Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Name

comm

Synopsis

comm [options] file1 file2

Compare lines common to the sorted files file1 and file2. Output is in three columns, from left to right: lines unique to file1, lines unique to file2, and lines common to both files. comm is similar to diff in that both commands compare two files. But comm can also be used like uniq; comm selects duplicate or unique lines between two sorted files, whereas uniq selects duplicate or unique lines within the same sorted file.

Options

-num

Suppress printing of column num. Multiple columns may be specified and should not be space-separated.

--help

Print help message and exit.

--version

Print version information and exit.

Example

Compare two lists of top-10 movies, and display items that appear in both lists:

comm −12 siskel_top10 ebert_top10