.\" Copyright (c) 2023–2024 DTB <trinity@trinity.moe>
.\" Copyright (c) 2023–2024 Emma Tebibyte <emma@tebibyte.media>
.\"
.\" This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. To see a copy of this license,
.\" visit <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/>.
.\"
.TH STRCMP 1
.SH NAME
strcmp \(en compare strings
.\"
.SH SYNOPSIS
.\"
strcmp
.RM [ string ]
.RB [ strings... ]
.\"
.SH DESCRIPTION
.\"
Check whether string arguments are the same.
.\"
.SH DIAGNOSTICS
.\"
The program will exit successfully if the strings are identical. Otherwise, it
exits with the value 1 if an earlier string has a greater byte value than a
later string (e.g. strcmp b a) and 255 if an earlier string has a lesser byte
value (e.g. strcmp a b).

When invoked incorrectly, a debug message will be printed and the program will
exit with the appropriate
.BR sysexits.h (3)
error code.
.\"
.SH CAVEATS
.\"
The program will exit unsuccessfully if the given strings are not identical;
therefore, Unicode strings may need to be normalized if the intent is to check
visual similarity and not byte similarity.
.\"
.SH RATIONALE
.\"
The traditional tool for string comparisons in POSIX and other Unix shells has
been
.BR test (1).
This tool also handles integer comparisons and file scrutiny. These parts of its
functionality have been broken out into multiple utilities.

This program’s functionality may be performed on a POSIX-compliant system with
.BR test (1p).
.\"
.SH AUTHOR
.\"
Written by DTB 
.MT trinity@trinity.moe
.ME .
.\"
.SH COPYRIGHT
.\"
Copyright © 2023 DTB. License AGPLv3+: GNU AGPL version 3 or later
<https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
.\"
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR strcmp (3),
.BR intcmp (1),
.BR scrut (1),
.BR test (1p)