Unix: Visual QuickStart Guide

Finding differences in files with sdiff

Yet another way to compare files is to use sdiff, which presents the two files onscreen so that you can visually compare them (see Code Listing 6.16).

To compare files with sdiff:

• sdiff dearliza dearhenry

  At the shell prompt, type sdiff and the file names to compare the two files. The output, as shown in Code Listing 6.16, presents each line of the two files side by side, separating them with

  • (Nothing) if the lines are identical

  • < if the line exists only in the first file

  • > if the line exists only in the second file

  • | if they are different

Tip

If most of the lines are the same, consider using the -s flag so the identical lines are not shown. For example, type sdiff -s dearliza dearhenry.

Tip

If the output ...