Diff

Full definition of diff

Noun

1. (slang) Abbreviation of differenceA peach and an apricot? What's the diff?
2. (computing) Any program which compares two files or sets of files and outputs a description of the differences between them.
3. (computing) The output of a diff program. A diff file.
• 2004, Paul Graham, 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.
4. (medicine) Abbreviation of differential: differential of types of white blood cell in a complete blood count.
5. (slang) Abbreviation of difficult
6. (rock climbing) A difficult route.

Verb

1. (transitive, computing) To run a diff program on (files or items).
2. (transitive, computing) To produce a description of changes made to a collection of files. To produce a patch file.
3. (transitive, computing) To compare two files or other objects, manually or otherwise.

Proper noun

1. (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.

Related terms

• (computing) diff file