![]() ![]() And of course you can use a full path to the files to compare as well if need be, for example to compare an edited hosts file with another version elsewhere:ĭiff -w /etc/hosts ~/Downloads/BlockEverythingHosts.txt The -w flag can be handy for plain text files because it tells diff to ignore white space when comparing files. The basic syntax for diff at the command line is as follows:įor example, if in the present directory we want to compare bash.txt and bash2.txt, the syntax would look like the following: The diff is a command line tool, thus you must first launch the Terminal app, found in /Applicaitons/Utilities/ and then you’re ready to begin. How to Use Diff to Compare Files at the Command Line If need be you can always make a copy of the file and convert it to plain text via the textutil command line tool on the Mac, or even by using TextEdit. Meld is regularly updated, so we can hope for new features in future versions.The diff command is available by default on the Mac, and it works the same in Linux and other unix operating systems as well, just in care you were wondering, and for Windows users it’s quite similar to how the ‘fc’ file compare tool works.įor best results you’ll want to be working with plain text files of some sort and not rich text. If you use a version control system like Git, Mercurial or SVN, Meld can manage your files, check for changes and perform commits and updates. Meld supports file editing, filtering with regular expressions, comparing and merging three files, and comparing two or three folders and their contents, and also provides helpful visualization of differences using arrows and color-coding. A cool thing about Meld is that you don’t have to install it – just run the executable and use it as a portable app. You can download the source and the Windows version, and find the package in the repositories if you’re a Ubuntu, Fedora or SUSE user. Meld packs features from other diff tools into a Python-built interface. This might turn away some users luckily, they can choose another tool from this list since they all offer more or less the same options. Diffmerge is free, but it will occasionally ask for a paid registration key. The settings dialog lets you define custom rules for handling various file types. It can compare up to three files and two folders and show if the files are identical, which can be useful when checking if an rsync backup was performed correctly. You can edit files within Diffmerge, automatically merge file versions and export differences to a new file. This application works on Linux, Windows and OS X, integrates well with Windows Explorer, and offers installer packages for some distributions. Diffuse works on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It also supports (limited) syntax highlighting and offers integration with several version control systems – including Git, Mercurial and Subversion – to help you keep files in sync. You can edit files directly from Diffuse and perform merges and line matching. It can compare an unlimited number of files in a side-by-side view and summarize the differences. The great thing about Kdiff3 is that it lets you paste text from any file directly into the main window, eliminating the need for creating files when you just want to compare text “on-the-fly.” DiffuseĪt first sight it seems simple, but Diffuse is as equally powerful as other tools on this list. ![]() You can toggle word wrap and line numbers for better overview and adjust color settings to mark the differences. The “Settings -> Configure Kdiff3” dialog lets you set parameters for file comparison in folders (by date, size, binary comparison, or full contents) and between files (ignore case, numbers and white space). Kdiff3 integrates well with KDE (supports Dolphin service menus), but it will work on all Linux distributions, Windows and Mac OS X. It lets you compare two files to a base file, and merge, split and join entire folders, files or just selected parts of text. Kdiff3 is a graphical frontend to diff, meaning that it relies on diff and offers all its options. Both text editors have relatively complex syntax that requires some learning, but it pays off since they’re very powerful and thoroughly customizable. ![]()
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