A tool to compare 2 folders and store the difference?

Question

Does anybody knows a way to compare 2 versions of a directory to create a 3rd one with the difference of both?

I need it to make incremental updates of my software.

Thx

You might find this article very helpful. – Oliver Salzburg Mar 13 '12 at 12:58 — Oliver Salzburg, Mar 13 '12 at 12:58

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 14 '12 at 09:20

3

You can use the following command

$ diff -qr <path_of_folder1> <path_of_folder2>

This does an incremental and recursive comparison of both the folders. If you want, you can rsync both the folders to

answered Mar 14 '12 at 09:20

Karthik

66

http://superuser.com/questions/256003/rsync-difference-between-two-directories-to-a-3rd-directory – code-gijoe Mar 14 '12 at 15:15
basically I will use RSYNC! – code-gijoe Mar 14 '12 at 15:15

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 13 '12 at 12:49

1

Use Beyond Compare tool for comparing folders & files

answered Mar 13 '12 at 12:49

Siva Charan

4,913

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 14 '12 at 08:54

What do your mean with "dfference"?

If you mean patch type difference then use "diff" with "--recursive" flag.

If you mean copying files which are only in second directory or are different in second directory, then it is called "incremental backup". For example use "rsync" with "--backup-dir=DIR" option.

If you need versioning (for software development for instance) then take git (or subversion).

A tool to compare 2 folders and store the difference?

3 Answers3