diff command

[panchpan]

Hello.
Can we use diff command or any other to find differnce in two files which shows only difference and no '<' '>' or any other output.

Thanks

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi:

If you want to 'diff' two files but discard any output and only evaluate whether or not the files differ, do:

# diff file1 file2 > /dev/null 2>&1 && echo "no difference" || echo "files differ!"

This simply tests the return value from 'diff'. A zero value means no differences.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Wouter Jagers]

Well, somehow you should know if the 'extra' or 'missing' data is in file 1 or file 2, no ?

Maybe the 'cmp' command can be useful to you, depending on what you want to do. Using the -s option to cmp you should not get -any- output, and the return code will tell you whether or not the files are identical.

Cheers

[Georg Tresselt]

Well, what about appending something like "| sed 's/\>//'" to your diff command line?

[panchpan]

THANKS