In emacs, if you pull both files into different buffers, you can use the Mx ediff-buffers command to display the differences. Emacs perfectly illuminates the differences and lets you scroll through buffers at the same time. See Tip # 5 on this Ten Essential Emacs tips "page or GNU docs on Ediff .
Unix has a diff . Here's a short example of using diff, and another example
I usually prefer to compare with Emacs, more visually, although, of course, both files will need to be buffered.
Levon source share