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The diff/sdiff command

This command is used to display the differences in the files by comparing the files line by line.

Syntax:

diff [options] File1 File2 

Example

1. Lets say we have two files with names a.txt and b.txt containing 5 Indian states as follows-:

$ cat a.txt
Gujarat
Uttar Pradesh
Kolkata
Bihar
Jammu and Kashmir

$ cat b.txt
Tamil Nadu
Gujarat
Andhra Pradesh
Bihar
Uttar pradesh

On typing the diff command we will get below output.

$ diff a.txt b.txt
0a1
> Tamil Nadu
2,3c3
< Uttar Pradesh
 Andhra Pradesh
5c5
 Uttar pradesh

Flags and their Functionalities

Short Flag	Description
-c	To view differences in context mode, use the -c option.
-u	To view differences in unified mode, use the -u option. It is similar to context mode
-i	By default this command is case sensitive. To make this command case in-sensitive use -i option with diff.
-version	This option is used to display the version of diff which is currently running on your system.