File comparison

In computing, file comparison is the calculation and display of the differences and similarities between data objects, typically text files such as source code.

This article is about data object, text, and file comparisons in computing. For other uses, see Comparison.

The methods, implementations, and results are typically called a diff, after the Unix diff utility. The output may be presented in a graphical user interface or used as part of larger tasks in networks, file systems, or revision control.

Some widely used file comparison programs are diff, cmp, FileMerge, WinMerge, Beyond Compare, and File Compare.

Many text editors and word processors perform file comparison to highlight the changes to a file or document.

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