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From: Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: standard error codes
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2017 13:03:37 -0800
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Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> writes:
[...]
> Sure. But ALMOST without exception, when I call diff, I'm using it to 
> determine whether a difference exists between two files that I expect to 
> be the same. Thus, a difference would count as failure. No difference 
> would count as success, and by a happy coincidence 0 (success) is what 
> is returned when there is no difference between the two files. This is a 
> perfectly reasonable way to justify the choices that the diff writers 
> made...

OK.  I usually want to see how two files (often two versions of the same
file) differ, and I usually expect them to differ.  If all I care about
is whether they differ or not, "cmp" is likely to be faster (perhaps not
significantly so).

[...]

> Anyway... back to C?

By all means.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Working, but not speaking, for JetHead Development, Inc.
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"