Re: Bug in "cmp" man page: missing exit status value

[Micah Cowan]

(2011年10月05日 07:36), David Booth wrote:
> The man page for cmp says of the -s option: "Output nothing; yield exit
> status only."  But nowhere does it say what that exit status will be.
> It should say whether a zero or non-zero exit status means "the files
> are the same" or "the files differ" or vice versa.

Hm. In my copy it's there:
"Exit status is 0 if inputs are the same, 1 if different, 2 if trouble."

Could be different versions of diffutils, but then that only begs the
question as to why you didn't mention a version (as is customary in bug
reports). :)

Additionally, please note that GNU is not in the habit of placing the
complete documentation in manpages, but rather in the info pages ("info
diffutils", if the documentation is installed; some systems
(Debian/Ubuntu) have a separate installation for some of the info
manuals, including this one). Of course I'd still consider this
information crucial enough to belong in the manpage as well, if one is
supplied (but then, for me, this information _is_ in the manpage, at
least for me in Debian's version 1:3.0-1 (so, based on GNU's 3.0).

-mjc