Diff files and folders

Diff

Standard Diff

Diff files

diff <file1> <file2>

Diff directories and their contents, showing the output of the diff for each file

diff -r <dir1> <dir2>

Diff directories and their contents, showing only the filenames of changed files

diff -qr <dir1> <dir2>

Diff directories ignoring specific files (eg. .DS_Store macOS files)

diff -x '<ignore>' -rq <dir1> <dir2>
diff -x '.DS_Store' -rq <dir1> <dir2>

Vim Diff

Diff files with side by side editable output

vim -d <file1> <file2>
vimdiff <file1> <file2>

Pipe diff output into vim for syntax highlighting

diff <file1> <file2> | vim -R -

Git Diff

Compare files using the git diff tool (works outside of git repos)

git diff --no-index <file1> <file2>

VS Code Diff

Compare files using VS Code diff view

code -d <file1> <file2>

Compare

Output if specified files differ

cmp <file1> <file2>

Comm

Select or reject lines common to two files (requires sorted files as input)

comm <file1> <file2>

Generates output in three columns (Disable columns using -<column-number...>)

• Column 1: Lines only in file 1

• Column 2: Lines only in file 2

• Column 3: Lines common in both files

Show only the common lines (eg. hide column 1 and 2 -12 and keep column 3)

comm -12 <file1> <file2>

Show lines only in file 1

comm -23 <file1> <file2>

Show lines only in file 2

comm -13 <file1> <file2>

Sort

List lines that intersect between file 1 and file 2

sort <file1> <file2> | uniq -d

List lines only in file one

sort <file1> <file2> | uniq -u