Questions tagged [file-comparison]

Compare files, either line by line, byte by byte or blocks of code.

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230 votes
19 answers
478k views

How to compare the differences between two PDF files on Windows?

Do you know a good way to compare PDF files side-by-side and show the modifications between the two? I'm looking for Windows software to accomplish this. It would be great if you can post both free ...
20 votes
4 answers
5k views

How to check if two DVDs are exactly the same?

I have two DVDs and if I open the DVDs and copy the content to the HDD and compare the respective files on the HDD it shows no difference. As I know DVD does also have some additional content (this ...
Mega's user avatar
  • 201
19 votes
6 answers
11k views

How to compare mp3, flac audio data in a file, ignoring header data (ID3 tag) etc.?

I've backed up some audio files up in 2 places and added ID3 tags into one backup but not the other, since time has passed my own memory has faded on whether the backups are actually the same, but now ...
therobyouknow's user avatar
12 votes
3 answers
29k views

How do I compare two folders recursively and generate a list of files and folders that are different?

tl;dr and an example I'm looking for a way to compare two folders recursively and output the relative paths all files (and folders) that are different (by size or by timestamp, à la rsync). For ...
Andrew Cheong's user avatar
12 votes
3 answers
7k views

Beyond-compare wont ignore line-breaks?

I have this comparison : I want those line to be treated equal. but it showes me they are different. I already applied those settings : What am I doing wrong ?
Royi Namir's user avatar
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6 votes
3 answers
8k views

How do I compare the contents of two folders on a Mac?

Here's my deal in a nutshell: I use a Macbook and a PC, where I sync 2-3 large folders between the two with Windows Live Mesh. About 5 days ago my Macbook battery died, and I just upgraded to a ...
delvec's user avatar
  • 63
5 votes
2 answers
11k views

Diff two files side by side, new lines on left column for no match

This has been getting the good half of my day and I am sure such a solution must exist (if not, then I am programming one), but alas, here is the question. I have two files, hpc.sorted.modules.txt ...
Adam's user avatar
  • 151
5 votes
3 answers
4k views

Identify differences between MP3 files

I have 2 old similar directory trees with MP3 files in them. I am happily using tools like diff and Rsync to identify and merge the files that are only present on one side, or are identical, I'm left ...
Thingomy's user avatar
  • 111
5 votes
1 answer
3k views

How to configure BeyondCompare to mark newline differences as unimportant?

Newline additions in the middle of a line in BeyondCompare are marked as important. I want them to become unimportant. How to do that? Example: A: <img src="a.gif"/> B: <img src="a....
Jader Dias's user avatar
4 votes
3 answers
4k views

BeyondCompare doesn't ignore difference in line endings (DOS/UNIX)

I am using BeyondCompare 4 on Windows 10 to compare two directories with thousands of files. They are the basically same, but one exported from Windows, and another one from Linux. The only difference ...
Gonçalo Peres's user avatar
4 votes
3 answers
2k views

How to compare two files and output lines which do not appear in the first?

If I have a file A containing a list of fields: 2017-04-23 2017-04-30 2017-05-07 2017-05-14 2017-05-21 2017-05-28 2017-06-04 2017-06-11 2017-06-18 2017-06-25 And another file B containing a list of ...
Zhro's user avatar
  • 877
3 votes
1 answer
4k views

Free WinMerge alternative with more clear line comparison [closed]

I use WinMerge to compare text files, usually alogn with TortoiseSVN. It is pretty good. The only thing which is inconvenient for me is very rough line comparison. For instance, if I have two long ...
sergtk's user avatar
  • 490
3 votes
1 answer
2k views

Free file comparison tool for Windows, with simple interface similar to Kompare [closed]

There's a ton of file comparison programs, but I'm looking for something specific and haven't found it yet. I need a graphical file comparison tool for Windows, suitable for non-power users - it ...
Jan Warchoł's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
5k views

Remove difference b/w PC and Unix Text in beyond compare

My problem is I'm try to compare two folders which are almost same but some little difference. But when I compare both of the folders then it shows difference in each file. When i open the file its ...
Sumit Singh's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
2k views

I want to compare 2 files down to the folders orders and contents

I want to compare two big folders – some 300 GB. I backed up my data, and I fear I might've changed some of the new copied folders contents by moving them accidentally. I want to compare the new ...
ramyy's user avatar
  • 39
2 votes
1 answer
5k views

How to check if two files are identical, within a Windows shell script?

I am writing a shell script using the Windows NT(ish) shell scripting language. (My computer has Windows 10.) I want to check if two text files are identical. If the files are identical, I want my ...
Jasper's user avatar
  • 123
2 votes
1 answer
6k views

FileZilla as local files manager - comparing files and directories on local disks

Is there a way to open local directory instead of server directory? Do you know if there is some plugin to make it avaible? I would like to use FileZilla as local file manager just to compare ...
Mattaniel's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
153 views

Check if a large file includes another (smaller) file

I have a 3MB and a 5MB text file. I want to make sure that the larger file includes all the lines that are in smaller file. The output needs to show all the lines of the smaller file not included in ...
Angelo's user avatar
  • 23
2 votes
1 answer
119 views

Compare and partly merge multiple projects without common ancestor

I'm looking for a way to compare/diff 3+ different, strongly related projects, none of which is the others' common ancestor and copy around ("merge") single chunks, and specifically test files. I do ...
Andy's user avatar
  • 23
2 votes
3 answers
3k views

How to diff three binary files to show only what changed between 1 and 2 and then changed back between 2 and 3?

I have three binary files (memory dumps). Call them file1, file2, file3. I'm trying to debug some software, and I'm toggling a switch. file1 = switch off file2 = switch on file3 = switch off I need ...
authur1234's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
286 views

What are the most reliable attributes for comparing two files in order to confirm/verify they are 100% identical?

I had the following situation: I copied 5.5 TB worth of data (in total over 100,000 directories and 10 million files) from an old disk to a newly-purchased external disk. I used Ultracopier on ...
fesom's user avatar
  • 21
2 votes
2 answers
1k views

Software that takes an image as input and searches a specified directory for similar images

I'm looking for a program that lets me input an image and then search a directory for visually similar images (much like Google image search, except it compares the image with my the local files in ...
A. D.'s user avatar
  • 281
2 votes
1 answer
325 views

Comparing files that differ by extension .php and php5

I have a situation that I need to have files with .php5 extension on the server to use php version 5, otherwise php version 4 is used (with .php extension). I started the development locally with ....
Priednis's user avatar
  • 185
1 vote
3 answers
5k views

How to find similarities in two text files?

Given two text files, how can I find passages that are alike? I know that I can use Meld or another diff tool to show the differences, but how to do the reverse thing? For example, here are two texts ...
Dirk's user avatar
  • 224
1 vote
2 answers
4k views

How to compare two folders in Linux when they are almost the same?

Normally I use meld to compare folders, however, it is not handy when a folder has many subfolders, because I have to click into each subfolder to see if there is any difference. Is there a tool to ...
Deqing's user avatar
  • 4,587
1 vote
1 answer
466 views

What are these odd characters appearing when I use P4Merge with TortoiseSVN?

When comparing files, I get these characters at the start of the diff. Image of the strange characters I'm not sure exactly what more information to provide, but will be watching this question if ...
John Doe's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

comparing binary files at different offsets, reporting offsets of first difference

[About a month ago I asked a similar question, requesting a specific CLI software tool that would perform the required task ; it was quickly blocked on the ground that asking for specific software ...
GabrielB's user avatar
  • 855
1 vote
2 answers
9k views

Compare three or more Word documents (*.docx)

I've seen multiple questions and answers for how to compare two Word documents, and I've seen some questions and answers for how to compare three or more raw text files, but I'm struggling to find a ...
zr00's user avatar
  • 321
1 vote
1 answer
39 views

Document recovery dialog in MSWord

There is [Autosaved] and [Original] files in the Document Recovery dialog, which lets me to open one or both files and then save them. The problem is that the files are very large and I cannot see ...
Valentin Tihomirov's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
677 views

How can I find the differences in visually identical PDF files? [duplicate]

I have two PDF files that look the same when viewed or printed, which diff says are binary and differ. How can I find out what the differences are? I prefer an answer that will run on Mac OS X or on ...
ShadSterling's user avatar
  • 1,489
1 vote
1 answer
109 views

Directory contents comparer by file content, ignoring name

Is there an utility to compare the contents of a directory by file contents alone? I have two sets of files, most of them binary same, but some of them different; but each files of a pair have ...
n611x007's user avatar
  • 6,406
1 vote
0 answers
5k views

Command-line option to compare 2 images in FastStone Image Viewer

I find FastStone Image Viewer a useful freeware to compare 2 images side by side, by selecting the images (by holding down Ctrl and clicking) in its Browser view, then pressing P. Is there a command-...
Gnubie's user avatar
  • 2,875
0 votes
2 answers
25 views

How can I compare 1 file to N other files in Ubuntu

I have a video website. Whenever a file gets uploaded it needs to be compared to all other existing files(videos) to ensure it's not a duplicate. Considering that with each upload the number of files ...
Andrei's user avatar
  • 103
0 votes
1 answer
201 views

Find similar documents between two piles of documents [closed]

I am looking for ways to find similar documents between two group of text documents. I know ways to compare two files. But I am looking for ways to do that between two group of files. Let's say ...
Brian's user avatar
  • 121
0 votes
2 answers
739 views

Program to compare binary files

I'm looking for a freeware program that compares two binary files with each other, and can do the following things: Give a percentage of similarity Hash the files (give a few basic, as well as fuzzy ...
user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
117 views

How to type [TAB] in Total Commander "Compare" editor?

I love to use Total Commander "Compare by content" editor. However, when I press [TAB], it doesn't type it in the source, it just rotates the focus over different GUI buttons. How do I type [TAB] in ...
Tomas's user avatar
  • 7,399
0 votes
1 answer
671 views

How to specify files to filter out in Meld from the command line?

I use Meld on Linux to compare files/dirs. (It's far slower and seemingly less capable than WinMerge, but WinMerge is sadly not available for Linux.) I'm trying to ignore some files/dirs which I don't ...
Stan's user avatar
  • 105
0 votes
2 answers
251 views

comparison of two folders containing the same filenames with different extensions

I have many catalogs where one folder contains photos in .jpg format and the second folder having same filenames in .dng format. There are some missing files between these two folders. My objective is ...
Adam's user avatar
  • 3
0 votes
0 answers
152 views

Cross-compare several files with a diff tool

Have anyone encountered the challenge of comparing several files with each other on a Mac/unix machine? Consider a list of files 100.txt, 101.txt, 102.txt etc. in the same folder. How can I cross-...
user1736049's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
7k views

Compare Two Files and Remove the Duplicates

What is the easiest way to compare 2 files and deleting the duplicates found on both files. I'm aware you can do this easily on a linux box with certain commands, but how would I go about achieving ...
holograms's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
2k views

How to compare files inside and outside of a zip file in Windows?

When I archive a large number of files in a zip file using 7-Zip in Windows, I'd like to verify that the compression was performed without error. In order to do this, I need to compare the original ...
NewSites's user avatar
  • 766
0 votes
0 answers
613 views

Compare two whole HDD's contents, sector-level

While analysing two 4TB HDDs, which were in some kind of RAID 1 configuration, and thus have the same contents in terms of files / folders (they have been reformatted but R-Studio lists the same file ...
GabrielB's user avatar
  • 855
0 votes
1 answer
170 views

Do you know how to compare two PDF and set comment?

I know similiar questions have been asked here, but this one is different! I have to compare two PDFs of a book. One is my original and the second is the pre-print version from the publisher. The two ...
Globoquadrina's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
284 views

Automate the comparison of corrupted files

After an unfortunate CHKDSK analysis which corrupted many files on a 3TB HDD (erroneously detected as 746 GB, probably because of a USB2 controler being incompatible with capacities over 2TB), I would ...
GabrielB's user avatar
  • 855
0 votes
1 answer
294 views

Compare binary files, ignore size mismatch

How can I compare two files and print the differences like Windows' fc does even if the files' sizes are different? I need a program for windows, cygwin programs are accepted too.
Smit Johnth's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
39 views

Comparing directories

At some point when there was a software upgrade the previous support person that I took over from made a copy of a directory to the new server for the upgrade. We've kept the old server around ...
mlw4428's user avatar
  • 177
0 votes
1 answer
248 views

File comparison, one-to-many

I need a program that allows comparing one text file to many others without having to open each one manually. This is how it would work: 1) select the file which all others will be compare with 2) ...
Zadat's user avatar
  • 31
0 votes
1 answer
39 views

Copying files with filtering out same files

I'm having this problem. I copied bunch of files from one disk to another (around 200gb). Some files in the process didn't copy, mostly because the name was to long. So, I'm looking for a tool that ...
klo's user avatar
  • 1