diffstat

Make a histogram from diff output.

Description

The diffstat command reads the output of the diff command and displays a histogram of the insertions, deletions, and modifications per file. It provides a summary of the differences between files. Users can also pipe the output of diff directly to diffstat. If the files or directories being compared are not in the current directory, absolute paths should be used.

Syntax

diffstat (options) (parameters)

Options

-n <length>   Specify the maximum filename length. It must be greater than or equal to the longest filename.
-p <length>   Same as -n, but <length> includes the file path.
-w            Specify the width of the output field.
-v            Display version information.

Parameters

File: Specifies the file containing the output from the diff command.

Examples

Compare files with the same name "testf.txt" in directories "test1" and "test2" using diff, and then use diffstat to display the statistics:

diff test1 test2 | diffstat    # Display statistical results

Note: This command is very convenient for viewing a summary of changes.

You can view the content of the files using the cat command:

cat test1/testf.txt           # View content of test1/testf
abc
def
ghi
jkl
mno
pqr
stu
vws

cat test2/testf.txt          # View content of test2/testf
abc
def
ghi
jkl
mno

From the content above, we can see the differences. Now run the previous command to see the statistics:

testfile | 2 +-             # Statistical information output
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)