Using 'diff' (or anything else) to get character-level diff between text files

Question

I\'d like to use \'diff\' to get a both line difference between and character difference. For example, consider:

File 1

abcde
ab         


        

Answer 1

You can use the cmp command in Solaris:

cmp

Compare two files, and if they differ, tells the first byte and line number where they differ.