Tandy 1000 MS-DOS Reference Manual page 97

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Chapter 6 I Command Reference
For example:
matches
and
but does not match
(Each underscore represents a white space in these examples.)
Use the /W parameter only in source comparisons.
pathnamel pathname2 can be either source files (files that con-
tain source statements of a programming language) or binary
files (files output by the assembler, the linker, or a Microsoft
high-level language compiler).
Notes and Suggestions
• FC uses a large amount of memory as buffer (storage) space
to hold the source files. If the source files are larger than
available memory, FC compares what can be loaded into the
buffer. If no lines match in the portions of the files in the
buffer, FC displays only the message:
***
Files are different
***
and returns to the system prompt. For binary files larger than
available memory, FC compares both files completely, overlay-
ing the portion in memory with the next portion from disk.
This does not affect the command output.
• The two kinds of comparisons are line-by-line and byte-by-
byte.
In a line-by-line comparison, FC marks off blocks of lines and
then compares the lines within each block. In a byte-by-byte
comparison, FC simply displays the bytes that are different.
• If FC finds many differences (involving many lines), it only
reports that the files are different. Then it stops.
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