XZDIFF(1)

🎀 XZDIFF(1) — XZ Utils 🎀

okay bestie, this is XZDIFF(1) from XZ Utils 💖 and its whole thing is comparing files that are already compressed, so you never have to unzip them first 😭✨ the commands in this page are xzcmp, xzdiff, lzcmp, and lzdiff, and they all do the same comparison job 💅

🎀 NAME 🎀

xzcmp, xzdiff, lzcmp, lzdiff - compare compressed files 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

xzcmp [option...]  file1 [file2]
xzdiff ...
lzcmp ...  (DEPRECATED)
lzdiff ...  (DEPRECATED)

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so xzcmp and xzdiff are the dynamic duo here 👑 they compare the uncompressed contents of two files. the uncompressed data and your options get handed off to cmp(1) or diff(1), unless you ask for --help or --version, in which case they just show you that info instead 🫶

if you give both file1 and file2, they can be plain uncompressed files, or files in any format that xz(1), gzip(1), bzip2(1), lzop(1), zstd(1), or lz4(1) can decompress 🔥 the right decompression command gets picked from the filename suffixes of file1 and file2. a file with a suffix it doesn't recognize is assumed to be either uncompressed or something xz(1) can decompress. no cap, it's very chill 🌈

if you only give one filename, then file1 has to end in a suffix for a supported compression format 💀 and file2 is assumed to be file1 with that compression suffix chopped off. so file1.xz would pair with plain file1 🍓

the commands lzcmp and lzdiff are only around for backward compatibility with LZMA Utils 🙈 they are deprecated and will be removed in a future version, so maybe don't build your whole life around them bestie 😭

🚪 EXIT STATUS 🚪

if a decompression error happens, the exit status is 2 💀 otherwise you get whatever exit status cmp(1) or diff(1) gave back ✨

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

cmp(1), diff(1), xz(1), gzip(1), bzip2(1), lzop(1), zstd(1), lz4(1) 💜

that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 from Tukaani, dated 2025-03-06, filed under XZDIFF(1) 💖✨