DIFFDIR: Compare Directories
diffdir recursively compares the contents of two directory trees.
Files are compared by reading the files and comparing them
byte-for-byte.
All files, including hidden and system files, are compared.
diffdir switches... dir1 dir2
switches:
- -v Verbose
The output of the program will list files that are different
from
dir1 to
dir2, prefixed by a character:
- - File exists in dir1 but not in dir2.
- + File exists in dir2 but not in dir1.
- # File exists in both dir1 and dir2, but
has different contents.
It's useful for:
- Verifying that a backup actually does contain exactly
the same files with the same content.
- Determining what files in a release package have changed
from one version to the next.
- Determining what files on a disk were modified by an
installation program (by comparing with a backup).
- Detecting if files on a disk were tampered with by comparing
with a known good backup.
