comparing standard input

[hush]

I have two md5 strings that i wish to compare. i don't want to do this manually so have been attempting to use either "cmp" or "diff".

I would like to do it from standard input rather than files.

The best i have come up with so far is

diff file1 -

which compares the operand to STDIN but I was wondering if there was a way to do it with two lots of STDIN (using "cmp" "diff" or any other tool).

[RobinVossen]

What about:

First=read
Second=read
diff $First $Second

Or, I might not get your Question

[hush]

thanks for the reply.

i would like to compare two strings rather then files. the following output my make it a bit clearer:

~$ First=f79fa5a676b6dddb5ef48f9041771377
~$ Second=f79fa5a676b6dddb5ef48f9041771377
~$ diff $First $Second
diff: f79fa5a676b6dddb5ef48f9041771377: No such file or directory
diff: f79fa5a676b6dddb5ef48f9041771377: No such file or directory

[RobinVossen]

Oh yea ofc.
My bad well do it like this:

First=read
Second=read
echo $First >> $First 
echo $Second >> $Second
diff $First $Second
rm -rf  $First $Second

[drl]

Hi.

I would use the shell. Get the strings into variables as you need, then compare:

#!/usr/bin/env sh

# @(#) s1       Demonstrate string compare.

set -o nounset
echo

debug=":"
debug="echo"

## Use local command version for the commands in this demonstration.

echo "(Versions displayed with local utility \"version\")"
version >/dev/null 2>&1 && version bash

echo
First=f79fa5a676b6dddb5ef48f9041771377
Second=f79fa5a676b6dddb5ef48f9041771377

echo " Expecting OK:"
if [ "$First" = "$Second" ]
then
        echo OK
else
        echo KO
fi

echo
echo " Expecting KO:"
First=9
if [ "$First" = "$Second" ]
then
    echo OK
else
    echo KO
fi

exit 0

Producing:

% ./s1

(Versions displayed with local utility "version")
GNU bash 2.05b.0

 Expecting OK:
OK

 Expecting KO:
KO

cheers, drl

[RobinVossen]

Thats better indeed