¬ just serendipity 🍀 (not just serendipity)

Problem statement: Given an ‘alpha’ directory setup with a bunch of configuration files (e.g. for CI/CD) that works for one cluster, and given another ‘bravo’ directory for a distinct cluster, how can you compare the differences between both directories e.g. perhaps to reconcile them, or to make them consistent and uniform?

In this context, cp -r or rsync are out of scope. We do not want to clone one directory into another: that would have been trivial.

Diffoscope #

Main tool: Diffoscope:

In-depth comparison of files, archives, and directories.

diffoscope tries to get to the bottom of what makes files or directories different. It will recursively unpack archives of many kinds and transform various binary formats into more human-readable form to compare them. It can compare two tarballs, ISO images, or PDF just as easily.

diffoscope gained a lot of popularity a few years ago, when linux distributions started to care about reproducible builds. In fact, it’s highlighted in their tools page.

Usage: Very similar to diff. Run diffoscope {dir1} {dir2}.

Midnight Commander #

The classic mc:

GNU Midnight Commander is a visual file manager, licensed under GNU General Public License and therefore qualifies as Free Software. It’s a feature rich full-screen text mode application that allows you to copy, move and delete files and whole directory trees, search for files and run commands in the subshell. Internal viewer and editor are included.

It has two side-by-side panes. The idea is to navigate to a directory in each pane (toggle pane focus with Tab), and then perform a visual inspection (use arrow keys to navigate). The effect is comparable to having two side-by-side tmux panes with ranger opened in each of them.