Comparing two files in linux terminal

Question

There are two files called \"a.txt\" and \"b.txt\" both have a list of words. Now I want to check which words are extra in \"a.txt\

Answer 1

Here is my solution for this :

mkdir temp
mkdir results
cp /usr/share/dict/american-english ~/temp/american-english-dictionary
cp /usr/share/dict/british-english ~/temp/british-english-dictionary
cat ~/temp/american-english-dictionary | wc -l > ~/results/count-american-english-dictionary
cat ~/temp/british-english-dictionary | wc -l > ~/results/count-british-english-dictionary
grep -Fxf ~/temp/american-english-dictionary ~/temp/british-english-dictionary > ~/results/common-english
grep -Fxvf ~/results/common-english ~/temp/american-english-dictionary > ~/results/unique-american-english
grep -Fxvf ~/results/common-english ~/temp/british-english-dictionary > ~/results/unique-british-english

Answer 2

Try sdiff (man sdiff)

sdiff -s file1 file2

Answer 3

You can use diff tool in linux to compare two files. You can use --changed-group-format and --unchanged-group-format options to filter required data.

Following three options can use to select the relevant group for each option:

• '%<' get lines from FILE1

• '%>' get lines from FILE2

• '' (empty string) for removing lines from both files.

E.g: diff --changed-group-format="%<" --unchanged-group-format="" file1.txt file2.txt

[root@vmoracle11 tmp]# cat file1.txt 
test one
test two
test three
test four
test eight
[root@vmoracle11 tmp]# cat file2.txt 
test one
test three
test nine
[root@vmoracle11 tmp]# diff --changed-group-format='%<' --unchanged-group-format='' file1.txt file2.txt 
test two
test four
test eight

Answer 4

Also, do not forget about mcdiff - Internal diff viewer of GNU Midnight Commander.

For example:

mcdiff file1 file2

Enjoy!