diffoscope

in-depth comparison of files, archives, and directories

diffoscope will try to get to the bottom of what makes files or directories different. It will recursively unpack archives of many kinds and transform various binary formats into more human readable form to compare them. It can compare two tarballs, ISO images, or PDF just as easily.

Example of diffoscope HTML output

Firefox extensions compared (HTML output)

Example of diffoscope text output

Debian packages compared (text output)

And more examples on reproducible.debian.net…

Features

Command-line interface
Text and HTML ouput
Supported archives: bzip2, cpio, .deb, gzip, ipk, iso9660, RPM, squashfs, tar, xz, zip
Supported formats: Debian .changes, TrueType and OpenType fonts, Gettext .mo, .class, Mono .exe, PDF, PNG, Sqlite3 databases, text files
Fallback on hexdump comparison
Fuzzy-matching to handle renamings

Get diffoscope!

On Debian unstable:

    apt-get install diffoscope

Through Git:

    git clone https://anonscm.debian.org/git/reproducible/diffoscope.git

Contribute

diffoscope is developed within the Debian “Reproducible builds” effort.

Extending diffoscope to support new formats is quite straightforward in most cases. It also has a comprehensive test suite. Patches welcome!

License

diffoscope is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later.

Contributors

Lunar, Reiner Herrmann, Chris Lamb, Helmut Grohne, Holger Levsen, Yasushi SHOJI, Daniel Kahn Gillmor, Peter De Wachter

Similar software

pkgdiff
pkg-diff.sh from Open Build Service build-compare