diff

Compare files and directories.

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• 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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