UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi I would like to run the diff command and recieve a little different output. I am on a linux machine. I am pretty new to shell scripting. So far my idea has shaped up to this, unworking, script. I would like file1: and file2: instead of the usual > or < output you recieve,

diff | sed -e s/^<*/file1:/g s/^>*/file2:/g d/---/g

Can anyone help me shape this into a working script?

Give this a try:

diff file1 file2 | sed -e 's/^</file1:/g' -e 's/^>/file2:/g'

I am writing this to use as a shell script, that I can run on multiple files by typing just: mydiff firstfile secondfile

I have been working and have this code:

diff $1 $2 | sed -e 's/^<*/file1:/g' -e 's/^>*/file2:/g'


I type: mydiff firstfile secondfile
It is running the diff but output comes out like this:

file2:file1:>
file2:file1:>
file2:file1:>
file2:file1:>

Thanks for the reply

oombera's reply works all you have to do is replace diff file1 file2 w/ diff $1 $2 and it works from a shell script.

Thanks for the replies I had it working in my second post, I was just confused by the output. It is working smoothly now. Thanks eveyone