How to act on the difference of two files?

[Jan de Ruiter]

I want to write:
if these two files are different
then do this piece of code
else do that piece of code
endif

I know fc (filecompare) does not give an exit code
depending on de difference of the files.

In UNIX I would write
if cmp file1 file2
then echo files are equal
else echo files are not equal
fi

How do I do this in dos?

[DosItHelp]

In WinXP fc does return an exit code and you could use:

Code: Select all

fc "%file1%" "%file2%">NUL&&(
    echo the files are equal
    rem keep this rem as last command in the block
)||(
    echo the files are different
)

However if the fc command in your windows version works different then you can try:

Code: Select all

fc "%file1%" "%file2%"|find "*****">NUL&&(
    echo the files are different
    rem keep this rem as last command in the block
)||(
    echo the files are equal
)

[Jan de Ruiter]

Thanks, that was very helpful

[Ed Diarrhea]

What is the difference between fc and comp?