Um... okay, if it's just a question of comparing one file to one other file to determine "same" or "different", a byte-for-byte comparison like you suggest certainly makes the most sense. Good call. (Update: Of course, just using the *n*x "cmp" utility will be a lot easier/quicker.)

But if it were a case of looking for duplicates among a large set of files, using the md5 signatures of the files (in combination with file byte counts) will save a lot of time. (I don't know if the OP represents this sort of "XY Problem" -- talking about comparing two files when the task is actually bigger than that -- but it's worth mentioning in any case.)

In reply to Re^2: MD 5 hash comparison/checker by graff
in thread MD 5 hash comparison/checker by daggy

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