zdiff

zdiff [diffoptions] file1 [file2_]

zdiff compares gzip-compressed files line-by-line without requiring manual decompression. It works like diff but transparently handles .gz files, decompressing them on the fly before comparing.If only one file is specified, it is compared against the uncompressed contents of the corresponding .gz file. If two files are specified, their contents (uncompressed if necessary) are fed to diff.All standard diff output formats are supported. Any options accepted by diff can be passed through to zdiff. The exit status from diff is preserved.The command is part of the gzip package. For byte-by-byte comparison, use zcmp instead.

All options are passed directly to diff(1). Common options include:-u

Unified output format.

Context output format.

Side-by-side output.

Report only whether files differ.

Ignore case differences.

Ignore all white space.

Only handles gzip-compressed files. Both files are fully decompressed in memory before comparison. For xz/lzma files, use xzdiff; for bzip2 files, use bzdiff.

diff(1), zcmp(1), zcat(1), gzip(1), zmore(1)