Diff Command

To compare files in Linux  Diff command is used. Diff command is available on almost all Linux distributions by default & can be used directly without any packages installation.


Syntax is:

$ diff file1 file2


Vimdiff Command

Vimdiff command is part of vim command, so to be able to use vimdiff we need to have vim installed on our systems. Install vim by using the following command,


CentOS/RHEL/Oracle Linux

$ sudo yum install vim


Ubuntu/Debian/Linux Mint

$ sudo apt-get install vim


Fedora

$ dnf install vim


vimdiff command syntax

$ vimdiff file1 file2


comparing folders use

$ vimdiff folder1 folder2


Lines with no difference appear as it is. For navigating the diffed files, we can use the following keyboard shortcuts,

]c: move to the next difference in the compared files,

[c: go back to the previous difference in the file

dp: put the difference from current window to a new window

do: get the changes from another window to the current window

CTRL-W + CTRL-W: to switch between the split windows

zo: Open the folded content of files

zc: close the folded content

:diffupdate: rescan the files for any changes

That’s it 

 

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