Bash loop to compare files

Question

I'm obviously missing something simply, and know the problem is that it's creating a blank output which is why it can't compare. However if someone could shed some light on this it would be great - I haven't isolated it.

Ultimately, I'm trying to compare the md5sum from a list stored in a txt file, to that stored on the server. If errors, I need it to report that. Here's the output:

root@vps [~/testinggrounds]# cat md5.txt | while read a b; do
>   md5sum "$b" | read c d
>   if [ "$a" != "$c" ] ; then
>     echo "md5 of file $b does not match"
>   fi
> done
md5 of file file1 does not match
md5 of file file2 does not match

root@vps [~/testinggrounds]# md5sum file*
2a53da1a6fbfc0bafdd96b0a2ea29515  file1
bcb35cddc47f3df844ff26e9e2167c96  file2

root@vps [~/testinggrounds]# cat md5.txt
2a53da1a6fbfc0bafdd96b0a2ea29515  file1
bcb35cddc47f3df844ff26e9e2167c96  file2

Answer 1

Not directly answering your question, but md5sum(1):

-c, --check
read MD5 sums from the FILEs and check them

Like:

$ ls
1.txt  2.txt  md5.txt
$ cat md5.txt
d3b07384d113edec49eaa6238ad5ff00  1.txt
c157a79031e1c40f85931829bc5fc552  2.txt
$ md5sum -c md5.txt
1.txt: OK
2.txt: OK