Diff recursive exclude compare directories side by side

diff --recursive --brief DIRA DIRB Files DIRA/Spaces/for-iowa/info.txt and DIRB/Spaces/for-iowa/info.txt differ

diff -y -W 200 a.txt b.txt # side by side

diff --suppress-common-lines atest.txt btest.txt

diff -w = ignore whitespace (i.e. windows line endings /r/n and linux line endings /n)

diff -s = when the same (i.e. identical) return a sentence saying such

diff --recursive --exclude="workspace.xml" ~/path1 /tmp/path2

diff --context=3 /path1/file.txt /path2/file.txt # show 3 lines context around any detected differences

diff <(ls -1 ./vmware-tools/vm | xargs -n1 basename) <(ls -1 ./0.8.3/2013.09.10.072215/debs/vm | xargs -n1 basename) -s Files /dev/fd/63 and /dev/fd/62 are identical

• -1 using the number one parameter lists only the file name
• xargs -n1 passes only the first value as an output
• basename only prints the filename: basename some/path/filename returns filename
• the < redirects the two sub process outputs http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/process-sub.html
• -s is the same as --report-identical-files which is nice to know the 2 directory outputs match