back to the diff tool

diff:tldr:1a22d

diff: Create a patch file for Git from the differences of two text files, treating nonexistent files as empty.

diff

$ diff --text --unified --new-file ${old_file} ${new_file} > ${diff-patch}

try on your machine

The command you provided is used to generate a unified diff patch file between two text files.

Let's break it down:

diff: This command is used to compare the contents of two files and highlight the differences between them.
--text: It specifies that the files being compared are plain text files. This option is necessary if the files may contain non-text characters or binary data.
--unified: This option tells diff to output the differences in a unified diff format. The unified diff format is commonly used to display the changes between two files in a human-readable format.
--new-file: This flag is used to handle the case where one of the files being compared is considered as a new file. It ensures that the diff output includes all the lines from the new file.
${old_file} and ${new_file}: These are variables that should be replaced with the actual file names or paths of the files you want to compare. ${old_file} represents the original or old version of the file, while ${new_file} represents the new version of the file.
> ${diff-patch}: This redirects the output of the diff command to a file named diff-patch. The > symbol is used for output redirection, and it writes the command's output to the specified file instead of printing it to the terminal.

So, when you run this command, it compares the contents of ${old_file} and ${new_file} using the diff command, and generates a unified diff patch file (diff-patch) that contains the differences between the two files.

This explanation was created by an AI. In most cases those are correct. But please always be careful and never run a command you are not sure if it is safe.

back to the diff tool