So I am trying to compare a binary file I make when I compile with gcc to an sample executable that is provided. So I used the command diff and went like this
diff asgn2 sample-asgn2 Binary files asgn2 and sample-asgn2 differ
Is there any way to see how they differ? Instead of it just displaying that differ.
Do a hex dump of the two binaries using hexdump. Then you can compare the hex dump using your favorite diffing tool, like kdiff3, tkdiff, xxdiff, etc.
Why don't you try Vbindiff? It probably does what you want:
Visual Binary Diff (VBinDiff) displays files in hexadecimal and ASCII (or EBCDIC). It can also display two files at once, and highlight the differences between them. Unlike diff, it works well with large files (up to 4 GB).
Where to get Vbindiff depends on which operating system you are using. If Ubuntu or another Debian derivative, apt-get install vbindiff.
I'm using Linux,in my case,I need a -q option to just show what you got.
diff -q file1 file2
without -q option it will show which line is differ and display that line.
you may check with man diff to see the right option to use in your UNIX.
diff -q work with those?
vbindiff only do byte-to-byte comparison. If there is just one byte addition/deletion, it will mark all subsequent bytes changed...
Another approach is to transform the binary files in text files so they can be compared with the text diff algorithm.
colorbindiff.pl is a simple and open-source perl script which uses this method and show a colored side-by-side comparison, like in a text diff. It highlights byte changes/additions/deletions. It's available on GitHub.
