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diff

Compare files and directories. More information: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/diff.1.html.
  • Compare files (lists changes to turn old_file into new_file):
    diff {{old_file}} {{new_file}}
  • Compare files, ignoring white spaces:
    diff --ignore-all-space {{old_file}} {{new_file}}
  • Compare files, showing the differences side by side:
    diff --side-by-side {{old_file}} {{new_file}}
  • Compare files, showing the differences in unified format (as used by git diff):
    diff --unified {{old_file}} {{new_file}}
  • Compare directories recursively (shows names for differing files/directories as well as changes made to files):
    diff --recursive {{old_directory}} {{new_directory}}
  • Compare directories, only showing the names of files that differ:
    diff --recursive --brief {{old_directory}} {{new_directory}}
  • Create a patch file for Git from the differences of two text files, treating nonexistent files as empty:
    diff --text --unified --new-file {{old_file}} {{new_file}} > {{diff.patch}}

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