This article is about the utility program. For the general topic of file comparison, see File comparison. For diffs in Wikipedia, see Help:Diff. For other uses, see DIFF.
diff
Original author(s)
Douglas McIlroy (AT&T Bell Laboratories)
Developer(s)
Various open-source and commercial developers
Initial release
June 1974; 50 years ago (1974-06)
Written in
C
Operating system
Unix, Unix-like, V, Plan 9, Inferno
Platform
Cross-platform
Type
Command
License
Plan 9: MIT License
In computing, the utility diff is a data comparison tool that computes and displays the differences between the contents of files. Unlike edit distance notions used for other purposes, diff is line-oriented rather than character-oriented, but it is like Levenshtein distance in that it tries to determine the smallest set of deletions and insertions to create one file from the other. The utility displays the changes in one of several standard formats, such that both humans or computers can parse the changes, and use them for patching.
Typically, diff is used to show the changes between two versions of the same file. Modern implementations also support binary files.[1] The output is called a "diff", or a patch, since the output can be applied with the Unix program patch. The output of similar file comparison utilities is also called a "diff"; like the use of the word "grep" for describing the act of searching, the word diff became a generic term for calculating data difference and the results thereof.[2] The POSIX standard specifies the behavior of the "diff" and "patch" utilities and their file formats.[3]
^MacKenzie et al. "Binary Files and Forcing Text Comparison" in Comparing and Merging Files with GNU Diff and Patch. Downloaded 28 April 2007. [1] Archived 2017-12-19 at the Wayback Machine
^Eric S. Raymond (ed.), "diff" Archived 2014-01-31 at the Wayback Machine, The Jargon File, version 4.4.7
^IEEE Computer Society; The Open Group (26 September 2008). Standard for Information Technology—Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) Base Specifications, Issue 7. pp. 2599–2607. IEEE Std. 1003.1-2001 specifies traditional, "ed script", and context diff output formats; IEEE Std. 1003.1-2008 added the (by then more common) unified format.
In computing, the utility diff is a data comparison tool that computes and displays the differences between the contents of files. Unlike edit distance...
Diffing may refer to: A type of drifting (motorsport) or doughnut (driving) diffing, use of the diff utility in computing This disambiguation page lists...
DIFF or diff may refer to: Look up diff in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. diff, a file comparison tool Data comparison, methods and implementations to...
WinDiff is a graphical file comparison program published by Microsoft, distributed with Microsoft Windows Support Tools, certain versions of Microsoft...
Pretty Diff is a language-aware data comparison utility implemented in TypeScript. The online utility is capable of source code prettification, minification...
The MaxDiff is a long-established theory in mathematical psychology with very specific assumptions about how people make choices: it assumes that respondents...
ExamDiff Pro is a commercial software utility for visual file and directory comparison, for Microsoft Windows. ExamDiff Pro has a double-pane view that...
software example application of this research is found on the Stata's command -diff- authored by Juan Miguel Villa. Design of experiments Average treatment effect...
The Diffs are an American punk band from Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 2003, their influences include original Los Angeles punk bands...
The arteriovenous oxygen difference, or a-vO2 diff, is the difference in the oxygen content of the blood between the arterial blood and the venous blood...
and may also cause colon cancer. It is known also as C. difficile, or C. diff (/siː dɪf/), and is a Gram-positive species of spore-forming bacteria. Clostridioides...
Differentiated services or DiffServ is a computer networking architecture that specifies a mechanism for classifying and managing network traffic and providing...
September 22, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Wikimedia Diff, June 10, 2009 "Wikimedia Diff". Wikimedia Diff. Archived from the original on August 16, 2011. Retrieved...
comparison" or "diff tool", but those effectively are equivalent terms — where the term "diff" is more commonly associated with the Unix diff utility. A typical...
The Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF) is an international film festival held annually in the Himalayan town McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala in India...
In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions...
data and ignoring what did not change. Generically known as a diff after the Unix diff utility, there are a range of ways to compare data sources and...
present in the two images. A visual diff or vdiff finds differences between two files by eyeball search. The term optical diff has also been reported, and is...
A differential amplifier is a type of electronic amplifier that amplifies the difference between two input voltages but suppresses any voltage common to...
{\displaystyle {\text{Diff}}(G)\simeq G\times {\text{Diff}}(G,e)} , where Diff ( G , e ) {\displaystyle {\text{Diff}}(G,e)} is the subgroup of Diff ( G ) {\displaystyle...
Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI or C-diff), also known as Clostridium difficile infection, is a symptomatic infection due to the spore-forming...
Look up difference or différence in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Difference commonly refers to: Difference (philosophy), the set of properties by which...
last column contains lines common to both. This functionally is similar to diff. Columns are typically distinguished with the <tab> character. If the input...
Global Information