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Diff vs Grep - What's the difference?

diff | grep |

As verbs the difference between diff and grep

is that diff is to run a diff program on (files or items) so as to produce a description of the differences between them, as for a patch file while grep is to use a program such as grep to search in a file.

As proper nouns the difference between diff and grep

is that diff is a program, historically part of the Unix operating system, which compares two files or sets of files and outputs a description of the differences between them while grep is a program which selects lines in a file which match a given pattern.

As a noun diff

is abbreviation of lang=en.

diff

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • (slang)
  • A peach and an apricot? What's the diff ?
  • (computing) Any program which compares two files or sets of files and outputs a description of the differences between them.
  • (computing) The output of a diff program. A diff file.
  • * 2004 , , Great Hackers , Essay:
  • I didn't want to waste people's time telling them things they already knew. It's more efficient just to give them the diffs .
  • (medicine) : differential of types of white blood cell in a complete blood count.
  • (slang)
  • (rock climbing) A difficult route.
  • Verb

    (en verb)
  • (computing) To run a diff program on (files or items) so as to produce a description of the differences between them, as for a patch file.
  • (computing) To compare two files or other objects, manually or otherwise.
  • Proper noun

    (en proper noun)
  • (computing) A program, historically part of the Unix operating system, which compares two files or sets of files and outputs a description of the differences between them.
  • See also

    * (computing ) patch

    grep

    English

    (wikipedia grep)

    Proper noun

    (en proper noun)
  • A program which selects lines in a file which match a given pattern.
  • Verb

    (grepp)
  • To use a program such as grep to search in a file.
  • By extension, to search anything (perhaps a paper document by eye).
  • Derived terms

    * greppable

    Phrases

    * you can't grep dead trees: one can more easily search through digital media, using tools such as grep, than one can search through paper books (i.e., those made from dead trees)

    Anagrams

    * preg