Diff Linux command — Find the difference in files the easier way.
In Linux you can use diff command to find the differences in file.
What is interesting is that you can use ”diff -u” to list the differences with ’+’ and ’-’ rather than sometimes confusing ’>’ and '<’.
Running the regular diff between two text files to see the differences is not so elegant for the human eye to decode. Luckily there are plenty of tools out there to make this easy.
This is a much more elegant tool compared to diff, if you are looking for a quick command-line utility that shows the difference between two text files. While using it on big files, its better to pipe the output to less command.
sdiff file1 file2 | less
Disadvantage – this is a read-only output. No editing or merging is possible. But its a great tool for a quick visual inspection.
Can compare two or three files and allows editing. The differences are dynamically updated. This can work with version control systems like CVS, SVN etc. Folder comparison is possible.
Multi-platform visual diff and merge tool. Has a three-pane view for comparing two-files and the third pane to view the merged output file. Works in Window, Linux and Mac OS X. Folder comparison is possible.
I am sure there are more tools out there (such as xxdiff) but I don’t feel like reviewing them (too ugly). 🙂