borg-diff(1)

Name
borg-diff - Finds differences between two archives.

SYNOPSIS

borg [common options] diff [options] ARCHIVE1 ARCHIVE2 [PATH...]

DESCRIPTION

This command finds differences (file contents, metadata) between ARCHIVE1 and ARCHIVE2.

For more help on include/exclude patterns, see the output of the borg_patterns command.

OPTIONS

See borg-common(1) for common options of Borg commands.

  arguments

    ARCHIVE1
        ARCHIVE1 name

    ARCHIVE2
        ARCHIVE2 name

    PATH
        paths of items inside the archives to compare; patterns are supported.

  options

    --numeric-ids
        only consider numeric user and group identifiers

    --same-chunker-params
        override the check of chunker parameters

    --format FORMAT
        specify format for differences between archives (default: "{change} {path}{NL}")

    --json-lines
        Format output as JSON Lines.

    --sort-by
        Sort output by comma-separated fields (e.g., '>size_added,path').

    --content-only
        Only compare differences in content (exclude metadata differences)

  Include/Exclude options

    -e PATTERN, --exclude PATTERN
        exclude paths matching PATTERN

    --exclude-from EXCLUDEFILE
        read exclude patterns from EXCLUDEFILE, one per line

    --pattern PATTERN
        include/exclude paths matching PATTERN

    --patterns-from PATTERNFILE
        read include/exclude patterns from PATTERNFILE, one per line

EXAMPLES

            $ borg diff archive1 archive2
                +17 B      -5 B [-rw-r--r-- -> -rwxr-xr-x] file1
               +135 B    -252 B file2
            added           0 B file4
            removed         0 B file3

            $ borg diff archive1 archive2
            {"path": "file1", "changes": [{"type": "modified", "added": 17, "removed": 5}, {"type": "mode", "old_mode": "-rw-r--r--", "new_mode": "-rwxr-xr-x"}]}
            {"path": "file2", "changes": [{"type": "modified", "added": 135, "removed": 252}]}
            {"path": "file4", "changes": [{"type": "added", "size": 0}]}
            {"path": "file3", "changes": [{"type": "removed", "size": 0}]}

            # Use --sort-by with a comma-separated list; sorts apply stably from last to first.
            # Here: primary by net size change descending, tie-breaker by path ascending
            $ borg diff --sort-by=">size_diff,path" archive1 archive2
                +17 B      -5 B [-rw-r--r-- -> -rwxr-xr-x] file1
            removed         0 B file3
            added           0 B file4
               +135 B    -252 B file2

NOTES

  The FORMAT specifier syntax

The --format option uses Python's format string syntax <https://docs.python.org/3.11/library/string.html#formatstrings>.

Examples:

            $ borg diff --format '{content:30} {path}{NL}' ArchiveFoo ArchiveBar
            modified:  +4.1 kB  -1.0 kB    file-diff
            ...

            # {VAR:<NUMBER} - pad to NUMBER columns left-aligned.
            # {VAR:>NUMBER} - pad to NUMBER columns right-aligned.
            $ borg diff --format '{content:>30} {path}{NL}' ArchiveFoo ArchiveBar
               modified:  +4.1 kB  -1.0 kB file-diff
            ...

The following keys are always available: - NEWLINE: OS dependent line separator - NL: alias of NEWLINE - NUL: NUL character for creating print0 / xargs -0 like output - SPACE: space character - TAB: tab character - CR: carriage return character - LF: line feed character

Keys available only when showing differences between archives:

    •   path: archived file path

    •   change: all available changes

    •   content: file content change

    •   mode: file mode change

    •   type: file type change

    •   owner: file owner (user/group) change

    •   group: file group change

    •   user: file user change

    •   link: file link change

    •   directory: file directory change

    •   blkdev: file block device change

    •   chrdev: file character device change

    •   fifo: file fifo change

    •   mtime: file modification time change

    •   ctime: file change time change

    •   isomtime: file modification time change (ISO 8601)

    •   isoctime: file creation time change (ISO 8601)

  What is compared

For each matching item in both archives, Borg reports:

    •   Content changes: total added/removed bytes within files. If chunker parameters are comparable, Borg compares chunk IDs quickly; otherwise, it compares the content.

    •   Metadata changes: user, group, mode, and other metadata shown inline, like "[old_mode -> new_mode]" for mode changes. Use --content-only to suppress metadata changes.

    •   Added/removed items: printed as "added SIZE path" or "removed SIZE path".

  Output formats

The default (text) output shows one line per changed path, e.g.:

            +135 B    -252 B [ -rw-r--r-- -> -rwxr-xr-x ] path/to/file

JSON Lines output (--json-lines) prints one JSON object per changed path, e.g.:

            {"path": "PATH", "changes": [
                {"type": "modified", "added": BYTES, "removed": BYTES},
                {"type": "mode", "old_mode": "-rw-r--r--", "new_mode": "-rwxr-xr-x"},
                {"type": "added", "size": SIZE},
                {"type": "removed", "size": SIZE}
            ]}

  Sorting

Use --sort-by FIELDS where FIELDS is a comma-separated list of fields. Sorts are applied stably from last to first in the given list. Prepend ">" for descending, "<" (or no prefix) for ascending, for example --sort-by=">size_added,path". Supported fields include:

    •   path: the item path

    •   size_added: total bytes added for the item content

    •   size_removed: total bytes removed for the item content

    •   size_diff: size_added - size_removed (net content change)

    •   size: size of the item as stored in ARCHIVE2 (0 for removed items)

    •   user, group, uid, gid, ctime, mtime: taken from the item state in ARCHIVE2 when present

    •   ctime_diff, mtime_diff: timestamp difference (ARCHIVE2 - ARCHIVE1)

  Performance considerations

diff automatically detects whether the archives were created with the same chunker parameters. If so, only chunk IDs are compared, which is very fast.

SEE ALSO

borg-common(1)

Author
The Borg Collective