diff is one of those brilliant little utilities tucked away inside every Linux distribution. Used in its most simple form, diff original_file current_file, it will detail all the differences between two files. Pipe the output to a third file -- as in diff original_file current_file > outfile -- and open it in a GUI text editor, and you'll find the differences highlighted in different colours.

diff has plenty of options (type man diff for a list of them), but most users will prefer to use it in GUI form. In the KDE world the choice is between KDiff3 and  Kompare. Both work splendidly, but only the latter promises to "Entertain you during that boring compile." How does it do that? Well it's a little hard to explain. Let me just say that scrolling through file differences becomes something of a 3D experience due to the way Kompare highlights them...


KDiff3 and Kompare's view of the same two files. (Click to enlarge.)
Only one has natty 3D views!

In computer science terms, diff is a solution to the longest common subsequence problem. (Or see here for a more succinct explanation.)


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