Timeline for How do I compare binary files in Linux?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
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| Aug 2, 2023 at 20:05 | comment | added | Mark Ransom |
@RockLee I found that -y with plain diff wasn't very useful, I got swamped with output that wasn't different.
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| Jun 22, 2023 at 6:54 | comment | added | Gabriel Staples |
Done! Here's my meldified version of your answer, with lots of details and screenshots. I provide some alternative diff commands to yours too, and screenshots.
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| Jun 22, 2023 at 4:42 | comment | added | Gabriel Staples |
Also, this answer is really ingenious! Upvoted. It has helped me so much. Works even better with meld. I'll add my own answer soon.
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| Jun 22, 2023 at 4:40 | comment | added | Gabriel Staples |
By the way, piping to less -RFX is helpful.
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| Jun 22, 2023 at 4:40 | comment | added | Gabriel Staples |
For some reason, colordiff isn't showing any colors for me, even if I use --color=always, as in: colordiff --color=always -y <(xxd file1.bin) <(xxd file2.bin) | less -RFX
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| Sep 7, 2022 at 5:15 | comment | added | rlittles | Colordiff is helpful, but the problem I have with it is that it highlights the entire LINE if there's a diff, rather than only highlighting the byte which differs. | |
| Jan 31, 2022 at 7:34 | comment | added | Whitequill Riclo |
you can also use a GUI app Meld meld <(xxd ./fasm-bin/hello1.bin ) <(xxd ./fasm-bin/hello0.bin) It will do the same thing.
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| Jan 7, 2020 at 15:32 | comment | added | pasbi |
Caution! colordiff truncates the width of each column. On my system, this leads to a subtly "wrong" output. Very annoying if you do binary comparison. Use the -W option with a sufficiently large number (140 was enough to work with xxd) to avoid that pitfall.
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| Jun 13, 2019 at 15:33 | history | edited | kenorb | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Colordiff has been added, so no need to repeat
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| Jun 13, 2019 at 11:20 | comment | added | ololobus |
My favorite solution, helped me a lot! With option --suppress-common-lines only different lines will be displayed
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| Mar 7, 2019 at 11:41 | history | edited | kenorb | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Improves answer.
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| S Jan 30, 2019 at 4:22 | history | suggested | The Matt | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Made minor grammar fix (to -> too). Also added explanation for -W200
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| Jan 30, 2019 at 3:22 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jan 30, 2019 at 4:22 | |||||
| Jun 1, 2018 at 14:27 | comment | added | ribamar |
great! still, diff -u <(xxd tinga.tgz) <(xxd dec.out.tinga.tgz) | vim - will do a job good enoug
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| Nov 14, 2016 at 6:35 | comment | added | rubo77 |
create a function xxddiff for this with: xxddiff() ( f() ( xxd "$1" ; ); diff -y <(f "$1") <(f "$2") | colordiff; )
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| Oct 8, 2016 at 11:14 | comment | added | Stefan van den Akker |
If you just want to know whether both files are actually the same, you can use the -q or --brief switch, which will only show output when the files differ.
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| Aug 4, 2016 at 15:25 | comment | added | Rock Lee |
If you don't have colordiff, this will do the same thing without colors: diff -y <(xxd foo1.bin) <(xxd foo2.bin)
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| Nov 17, 2015 at 22:46 | comment | added | golem |
Command can be simplified as colordiff -y <(xxd foo1.bin) <(xxd foo2.bin).
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| Nov 3, 2015 at 16:41 | history | edited | kenorb | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Better file names.
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| Sep 30, 2015 at 23:25 | history | edited | kenorb | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Corrected width.
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| Sep 5, 2015 at 21:14 | history | answered | kenorb | CC BY-SA 3.0 |