Summary of 9 excellent code comparison tools recommended under Linux

When we write code, we often need to know the differences between two files, or between different versions of the same file. There is a very powerful tool called BeyondCompare under Windows, but what tool do we need to use under Linux?

This article introduces 9 commonly used code comparison tools under Linux, including not only command line tools but also GUI interface tools, allowing you to easily perform code comparison.

1. diff Command

The diff command is a powerful text comparison tool that comes with Linux and is very easy to use. I have previously written a separate article introducing its use. Click the link below to view it.

The diff command is pre-installed in most Linux distributions. It can compare two text files line by line and output their differences. For more information, please refer to its man page.

$ man diff

However, although the diff command is powerful, its output is too touching, not intuitive or clear. Therefore, in order to make up for this shortcoming, some experts developed more powerful tools based on diff. Two are recommended here: colordiff and wdiff .

colordiff Command

colordiff is a Perl script tool that produces the same output as the diff command, but with code coloring and syntax highlighting. At the same time, if you don’t like its default colors, you can also customize the theme.

You can install colordiff on your computer by yourself, using different installation commands depending on the distribution.

$ yum install colordiff [On CentOS/RHEL/Fedora]
$ dnf install colordiff [On Fedora 23+ version]
$ sudo apt-get install colordiff [On Debian/Ubuntu/Mint]

Similarly, you can use the man command to view its help documentation:

$ man colordiff

wdiff Command

The diff command compares differences line by line, while wdiff is more abnormal and compares word by word. So if your text has only a few words modified, using the wdiff command will be more efficient.

The installation command is as follows:

$ yum install wdiff [On CentOS/RHEL/Fedora]
$ dnf install wdiff [On Fedora 23+ version]
$ sudo apt-get install wdiff [On Debian/Ubuntu/Mint]

For more details, see its man page.

$ man wdiff

2. vimdiff Command

vimdiff is equivalent to the vim -d command, which is the diff mode of the Vim editor.

This command is usually followed by two or more file names as parameters. These files will be opened in the split windows of the Vim editor at the same time, and the parts with different contents in the files will be highlighted.

Its Chinese homepage is: http://vimcdoc.sourceforge.net/doc/diff.html

The two tools introduced above are Linux command line comparison tools. Let's take a look at some GUI comparison tools.

3. Kompare

Kompare is a GUI tool based on diff. Users can easily see the differences between files and support merging these differences.

Kompare features are as follows:

• Support multiple diff formats;
• Support comparison between directories;
• Support reading diff files;
• Customizable interface;
• Create and apply patch files to source files.

The homepage of the tool is: https://www.kde.org/applications/development/kompare/

4. DiffMerge

DiffMerge is a cross-platform GUI text comparison tool with versions for Linux, Windows, and macOS. We know that BeyondCompare is a paid software, so if your company has high copyright requirements, you might consider the DiffMerge tool.

DiffMerge has two major functions: 1. Graphically display the changes between two files. Includes internal line highlighting and full editing support. 2. Graphically display the changes between the three files. Allows automatic merging (when safe to do so) and full editing control over the resulting file.

It has the following features:

• Support folder comparison;
• Integrated file browser;
• Highly configurable.

The homepage of the tool is: https://sourcegear.com/diffmerge/

5. Meld

Meld is a lightweight GUI code comparison tool that supports users to compare files and directories and is highly integrated with version control software. But for software developers, its following features are particularly attractive:

• Perform two-way and three-way diffs and merges
• Easily navigate between differences and conflicts
• Compare two or three directories file by file, showing new, missing, and changed files
• Supports many version control systems, including Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, and SVN.

Its official website is: http://meldmerge.org/

6. Diffuse

Diffuse is another popular, free, small, and very simple GUI text difference comparison and merging tool. It is written in Python and has two main functions: file comparison and version control. It allows file editing, merging, and outputs the differences between two files.

You can use it to view the text comparison summary and use the mouse to select a line in the file for editing. Other features include:

• Syntax highlighting
• Shortcut keys for easy text navigation
• Unlimited undo
• Support unicode encoded files
• Supports many version control systems, including Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, and SVN.
  

Its official website is: http://diffuse.sourceforge.net/

7. XXdiff

XXdiff is a free and powerful file and folder difference comparison and merging tool that can run on many Unix-like systems. However, it has a limitation that it does not support unicode files and there is no way to edit files directly.

It has the following features:

• Recursively compare files and folders
• Highlight differences
• Merge differences and export results
• Support for external diff tools, such as GNU diff, SIG diff, Cleareddiff, and many more
• Support script expansion

8. KDiff3

KDiff3 is another powerful cross-platform difference comparison and merging tool. It was developed by KDevelop and can run on all Unix-like platforms, including Linux, Mac OS, Windows, etc.

It can compare or merge two or three files or directories, and has the following features:

• You can compare differences sentence by sentence and word by word
• Support automatic merging
• Built-in editor to manually resolve conflicts
• Support various encoding formats such as unicode and UTF-8
• Support for printing differences

Its official website is: http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net/

9. TkDiff

TkDiff is another cross-platform, easy-to-use GUI text comparison tool that can run on Linux, Windows and MacOS systems. It also provides a left-right split interface for viewing the two files being compared.

However, it also has some features that other text comparison tools do not have, such as difference bookmarks and a navigation map for quick navigation of differences.

Its official website is: https://sourceforge.net/projects/tkdiff/

This concludes this article about the recommendation summary of 9 excellent code comparison tools under Linux. For more relevant Linux code comparison tool content, please search 123WORDPRESS.COM's previous articles or continue to browse the following related articles. I hope everyone will support 123WORDPRESS.COM in the future!