Diff between files

Saying that I have two files: a. The content of a. Improve this question. Yves Yves 2, 5 5 gold badges 22 22 silver badges 41 41 bronze badges. WissamRoujoulah You see, I don't need to check if a. I've already known that a. My question is how to print the difference into a file. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. But diff -u is giving a bunch of other information as well. The extra information from diff is context and instructions e.

Also simple enough for people to easily understand. The important thing to remember is that diff uses certain special symbols and instructions that are required to make two files identical. It tells you the instructions on how to change the first file to make it match the second file. Special symbols are: a : add c : change d : delete Syntax : diff [options] File1 File2 Lets say we have two files with names a.

The first line of the diff output will contain: Line numbers corresponding to the first file, A special symbol and Line numbers corresponding to the second file. Like in our case, 0a1 which means after lines 0 at the very beginning of file you have to add Tamil Nadu to match the second file line number 1. Next line contains 2,3c3 which means from line 2 to line 3 in the first file needs to be changed to match line number 3 in the second file.

It then tells us those lines with the above symbols. As a summary to make both the files identical, first add Tamil Nadu in the first file at very beginning to match line 1 of second file after that change line 2 and 3 of first file i. Uttar Pradesh and Kolkata with line 3 of second file i. Andhra Pradesh. After that change line 5 of first file i. Jammu and Kashmir with line 5 of second file i. In this case, line 3 from hello. Then, we have the changed line, which happens at line 5 in hello.

Diff always notes the differences with respect to the first file, so in this case, the comment line 4 was present in the first file but not the second file, so it was deleted and would have been present in the second file at line 3. For more information on the diff command, see here.

This tool provides an easy way to highlight the differences between the two inputted texts. Using the tool is super easy; input the two texts in separate boxes and you can see the output right below.

It will graphically show you the differences between the 2 textareas by highlighting those changed areas in red color. You can choose whether you want to see the difference between two given texts by characters, words or lines. The diff utility is a data comparison tool that calculates and displays the differences between two files. It displays the changes made in a standard format, such that both humans and machines can understand the changes and apply them: given one file and the changes, the other file can be created.