ZDIFF(1)

📦
version 1.15 · 8 versions
, in alpine 3.22, alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, arch rolling, centos-stream 10, centos-stream 9, debian bookworm, debian trixie, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, opensuse-leap 16.0, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 NAME 💖

okay so zcmp and zdiff are the bestie duo for comparing compressed files 🎀 they're basically compare compressed files but make it iconic ✨

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

zcmp [ cmp_options ] file1 [ file2 ]
zdiff [ diff_options ] file1 [ file2 ]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay this is the tea 🫖 zcmp and zdiff literally just call cmp or diff for you, but on files that were squished with gzip 🗜️💅 every option you type gets passed straight through to cmp or diff, no cap.

if you only give it file1, it gets compared to the uncompressed version of file1.gz 🦋 if you give it two files, both get unzipped first (only if they need it, bc we're efficient like that 💜) and then fed into cmp or diff.

the input files stay exactly as they were, no modifications, zero drama 🫶 and the exit status from cmp or diff gets preserved too, so your scripts still know what's up 👑

🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

these are your besties for the rest of the vibes: cmp(1), diff(1), zmore(1), zgrep(1), znew(1), zforce(1), gzip(1), and gzexe(1) 🧚

💀 BUGS 💀

⚠️ ngl this one is a little messy: messages from cmp or diff might refer to file names like "-" instead of the actual file names you typed 🙈 so if the output looks confusing, that's why!

ZDIFF(1) 🍓 bestie, you just leveled up your Unix game 💖 slay forever 🌈

📦 where this page comes from