> Puzzling result.
 
> ls -l says that the files are the same size.
> diff says that, even so, they're not the same.
 
> Can anyone suggest a test to say whether they're X%
> identical?
 
if the file sizes are the same and you think most
of the bytes are identical, cmp -l will give
you a decent report; pipe to wc -l for the total
number of differences in bytes. cmp isn't smart in 
isolating differences like diff; so if u insert 1
byte somewhere it will report heaps of bytes being
different not 1 byte being different.

Everyone should have cmp in their toolboxes; a lot of
people think "diff" when they should think "cmp".
"cmp" also has no vowels in it and sounds cool
because of that.

Stuart.


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