IntelliJ IDEA 2020.2 Help

Compare files from the command line

Open the diff viewer to compare two files from the command line. For example, you can compare the current version of a file with its backup, or your local copy of a file with its copy from the remote repository or its copy from another branch.

You can find the script for running IntelliJ IDEA in the installation directory under bin. To use this script as the command-line launcher, add it to your system PATH as described in Command-line interface.

Syntax
idea.bat diff <path1> <path2>
Example
idea.bat diff C:\MyProject\Readme.md C:\MyProject\Readme.md.bak

By default, IntelliJ IDEA does not provide a command-line launcher. For information about creating a launcher script for IntelliJ IDEA, see Command-line interface.

Syntax
idea diff <path1> <path2>
Example
idea diff ~/MyProject/Readme.md ~/MyProject/Readme.md.bak

You can find the script for running IntelliJ IDEA in the installation directory under bin. To use this script as the command-line launcher, add it to your system PATH as described in Command-line interface.

Syntax
idea.sh diff <path1> <path2>
Example
idea.sh diff ~/MyProject/Readme.md ~/MyProject/Readme.md.bak
Last modified: 24 July 2020