which lines are identical in the two files
 

Hi everyone!

I am trying to write a command to find out which lines are identical in the two files.
I come up with grep -f file1 file2 > newfile

The problem is when I open newfile, it is empty. There is nothing there.

Any suggestions, please?

Thank you very much!

Your command works for me. Maybe file1 and file2 have no lines in common.

Ummm.... interesting. I typed using vi an exact line in both files, but that line is not shown in the newfile.

Does file1 have any special characters in it? (e.g. ".", "*", "\", "[", "]", etc)

You should use -F (fixed strings, rather then regexps)

You could also try looking at the comm command.

Thank you everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!