What is the difference between md5sum and cksum
checksum, md5sum
Solution
If all you want is to check if 2 specific files are different or not, use `cmp FILE1 FILE2`. It will stop at the first difference encountered, so you don't lose time calculating checksums for the entire file.
If you do need a full checksum :
- `cksum` does a 32 bit ckecksum (CRC-32), while `md5sum` does a "more reliable" 128 bit checksum.
- `cksum` being simpler, it may be faster in some cases, but it may also not be the case because `md5sum` has been highly optimized for speed.
- `cksum` is part of POSIX, and may be present on some systems where `md5sum` is not.
Note that on Mac OS X, `md5sum` is not installed by default, but there is `md5`. The output of `md5 -r` is in the same format as md5sum.
Problem
Can someone explain what is the difference between md5sum and cksum, when I compare 2 binary files. One difference I know is cksum gives the number of "bytes" also along with the checksum value, which md5sum doesn't give. But my question is to compare 2 binary files, I can chose to use any of these at my will, or they have any specific purposes as well, for specific situations. Thanks in advance for your help