This is kind of related to #112 in the sense that #112 also seems to bring dependence on diff and if implemented could be used in this matcher to extend it also to comparison of stdout/stderr with reference files (I have an impression that the subject output is not a file but a variable).

Thanks for contribution. Eventually I want to merge this, but there are a few things to do.

First, this is a matcher to make sure the files are identical. It would be good to be able to see the differences in diff format, but It is better to output only if there is a difference or not in this PR.

About cmp

I try not to increase the number of dependent commands whenever possible, but I think cmp is one of the exceptions. Because the shell alone cannot handle null character.

# dash silently ignores the null character
dash -c '[ "_$(printf "\0")_" = "__" ]; echo $?'
0

# bash ignores the null character with warning
bash -c '[ "_$(printf "\0")_" = "__" ]; echo $?'
bash: warning: command substitution: ignored null byte in input
0

# only zsh can handle null character
$ zsh -c '[ "_$(printf "\0")_" = "__" ]; echo $?'
1

Therefore, it makes sense to use cmp. However, after some research, it seems that there are environments that do not contain cmp.

docker run -it fedora:32 /bin/sh
sh-5.0# cmp
sh: cmp: command not found

In reality I don't think this will be a problem, but I want to avoid it if possible. Fortunately, cmp can be easily simulated by using od or hexdump commands on which it already depends. Use cmp if there is a cmp command for speed of execution, otherwise fall back to code that uses the od or hexdump command. Therefore no new dependencies arise.

About DSL

The file 'dump.txt' should equal file 'dump.default.txt'

I think this is better. It's not as long as contents and is more obvious with file. However, to do so, you need to modify the existing equal matcher. It's a bit ad hoc, but I I think it can be distinguished by arguments. Specifically, define the shellspec_matcher_equal_file function and call it if there are two arguments and the first argument is file.

About diff

Do not use a diff from this PR, but only output whether the files are the same or not. As for the diff, I would like to think about it when dealing with #112, but I want to handle it on the reporter side.

There are several implementations of diffs, such as colordiff, icdiff, git diff, etc., and I want to allow the user to change them. If there is no diff, it will appear as it does now. Therefore this is also no new dependencies arise.

It will take some time the implementation using diff. but you can override YOUR shellspec_matcher_equal_file in the shellspec_spec_helper_configure function in shellspec_spec_helper.sh.

About cmp

Do I understand correctly that with the fallback the comparison should be done like

[ "$(od "$1")" = "$(od "$2")" ]

so that the strings are compared, but in a way which assures that the null character is not ignored?

I am not sure if am able to properly (i.e. in the shell-independent way) implement the check for existence of cmp and a fallback to od and then hexdump if also od is missing (greping around for hexdump in the shellspec I realised that you already have a fallback from od to hexdump in some function). Should I use the od_command function for the fallback solution?

About DSL

This also looks good to me. Unfortunately I am not sure how to implement it, because I don't really understand the matcher design - how this is called, what different functions in shellspec_matcher_equal() do. Consequently I can probably modify shellspec_matcher__match(), but I don't know what should be changed in other parts.

Specifically what to do with shellspec_syntax_failure_message? This definitely has to be changed but how to differentiate file and normal mode of equal? Will this also get more than 2 arguments if we have equal file name? Furthermore, what is the role of the shellspec_syntax_param line?

Is there a way to assert that the subject is file? Because this The output should equal file 'dump.default.txt' looks like a natural extension to The file 'dump.txt' should ...., but I think it will fail bitterly with what we have in mind currently.

About diff

This looks clear from my side.

I do have some questions to #112 though, but will comment there.