Given two directory trees, how can I find out which files differ by content?

Question

If I want to find the differences between two directory trees, I usually just execute:

diff -r dir1/ dir2/

This output gives the differences are between corresponding files. I am only interested in just getting a list of corresponding files whose content differs. I assumed it would simply be the matter of passing the command line option to diff, but I couldn't find anything on my man page.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

You said Linux, so your luck out:

diff --brief --recursive dir1/ dir2/ # GNU long options

diff -qr dir1/ dir2/ # common short options

Should do what you need.

If you also want to Know the differences for files that may not exist in either directory:

diff --brief --recursive --new-file dir1/ dir2/ # GNU long options

diff -qrN dir1/ dir2/ # common short options

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