Linux Pocket Guide, 2nd Edition

File Comparison

diff	Line-by-line comparison of two files or directories.
comm	Line-by-line comparison of two sorted files.
cmp	Byte-by-byte comparison of two files.
md5sum	Compute a checksum of the given files (MD5).

There are three ways to compare Linux files:

• Line by line (diff, diff3, sdiff, comm), best suited to text files

• Byte by byte (cmp), often used for binary files

• By comparing checksums (md5sum, sum, cksum)

These programs are all text-based. For a graphical file-comparison tool, try xxdiff at http://furius.ca/xxdiff.