When should you use comm command?

The comm command in Linux is used to compare two sorted files line by line. It helps you to identify common and unique lines between these files, making it a valuable tool for various data analysis tasks, scripts, or simply comparing two lists.

Use the comm command when you need to:

  • Identify common entries between two files.
  • Find unique entries in either of the files.
  • Quickly compare sorted files to see differences.

For example, if you have two sorted text files file1.txt and file2.txt, you can use comm to compare them:

comm file1.txt file2.txt

Keywords: Linux comm command compare files sorted files data analysis common lines unique lines