Given two directory trees, how can I find out which files differ by content?

linux bash shell unix diff
Mansoor Siddiqui picture Mansoor Siddiqui · Feb 14, 2011 · Viewed 536k times · Source

If I want find the differences between two directory trees, I usually just execute:

diff -r dir1/ dir2/

This outputs exactly what the differences are between corresponding files. I'm interested in just getting a list of corresponding files whose content differs. I assumed that this would simply be a matter of passing a command line option to diff, but I couldn't find anything on the man page.

Any suggestions?

Answer

Mark Loeser picture Mark Loeser · Feb 14, 2011

You said Linux, so you luck out (at least it should be available, not sure when it was added):

diff --brief --recursive dir1/ dir2/ # GNU long options
diff -qr dir1/ dir2/ # common short options

Should do what you need.

If you also want to see differences for files that may not exist in either directory:

diff --brief --recursive --new-file dir1/ dir2/ # GNU long options
diff -qrN dir1/ dir2/ # common short options

Related questions

How to run a shell script on a Unix console or Mac terminal?

I know it, forget it and relearn it again. Time to write it down.

Read More
Linux: copy and create destination dir if it does not exist

I want a command (or probably an option to cp) that creates the destination directory if it does not exist. Example: cp -? file /path/to/copy/file/to/is/very/deep/there

Read More
Linux/Unix command to determine if process is running?

I need a platform independent (Linux/Unix|OSX) shell/bash command that will determine if a specific process is running. e.g. mysqld, httpd... What is the simplest way/command to do this?

Read More