Definition: Fc

(1) See Fibre Channel.

(2) (File Compare) An external DOS/Windows command that compares the content of two files. The following example compares the text files 1.TXT and 2.TXT. See file compare and Comp.

  fc 1.txt 2.txt     blank areas
                     must match

  fc 1.txt 2.txt /w  blank areas do not
                     have to match

  fc 1.txt 2.txt /a  show only start and
                     end of mismatches

MISMATCHES IN TEXT FILES
Text files are compared line by line, and discrepancies are displayed as follows:

   ***** first file
   start
   ...
   ...
   end
   ***** second file
   start
   ...
   ...
   end
   *****

BINARY FILES
Binary files, such as .EXE, .COM, .SYS, .OBJ, .LIB and .BIN, are compared byte for byte. To compare program files ABC.EXE and XYZ.EXE, type:

       fc abc.exe xyz.exe

MISMATCHES IN BINARY FILES
Binary file discrepancies are shown as follows. The AAAAAA is the hexadecimal location of the mismatched bytes, and the two BB's are the bytes (in hex) from the two files:

     AAAAAAAA BB BB