Shell Function: Compare Output of Two Commands
I just wrote this up for some test automation. This function gets passed two commands, runs both commands, and returns “PASS” if they match, or “FAIL” with the diff if they do not match.
compare_output()
{
out1=/tmp/output-$$.1
out2=/tmp/output-$$.2
$1 2>&1 > $out1
$2 2>&1 > $out2
diff -q >/dev/null $out1 $out2
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
echo "FAIL"
echo
echo "Details:"
diff $out1 $out2
echo
else
echo "PASS"
fi
rm $out1 $out2
}
echo -n "Test that will fail: "
compare_output 'echo pass' 'echo fail'
echo -n "Text that will pass: "
compare_output 'echo pass' 'echo pass'
