The first command in Unix-like systems for comparing files and directories was diff. Originally written by Douglas McIlroy and first appearing in Unix 5th Edition in 1974, diff rapidly became an essential programming tool. Today, the original command is still available, and most programming languages have their own versions of diff. However, diff and its derivatives generally have one limitation: With few exceptions, most of them work only with plain text or markup languages like HTML. A new variation called diffoscope [1], which was released in mid-2020, brings a new level of functionality to file comparison.

Diffoscope is developed primarily by Debian's Reproducible Builds project [2], which aims to increase the robustness and security of Debian packages by ensuring that they always build the same way. Given Debian's nearly 60,000 packages and the variety of hardware available, this is no small task, especially considering that small errors in code can be hard to trace. Diffoscope was written to make this task easier by quickly tracking down differences between two files that are supposed to be identical but perform differently. As a side effect, diffoscope provides a modern diff utility that works across most programing languages and brings the power of diff to desktop users and non-programmers, especially writers who wish to compare drafts. Already, diffoscope supports over 60 binary formats that range from files and filesystems to audio and text files, including MS Word, LibreOffice Writer, and PDF (Table 1). And more seem likely to follow.

Diffoscope's basic command structure is:

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