UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Hi,

I am using diff command to check difference between two files.Both files are very big and when i execute this command /var temp space is filled up almost 99%.

Can any one please tell me is there any way i can specify directory name which has more space so that diff can use that dir for its temp storage.

Thanks

There may be other methods. A quick answer would be "man bdiff" but it is not usual to run diff of bdiff on very large files.

Please state:
Precise version of Unix/Linux.
Approximate size of each data file.
Amount of free disc space in directories root /tmp /usr/tmp and /var/tmp . Are any of these directories links or mountpoints already? Your problem only makes sense if /usr/tmp is linked to /var/tmp in some way or maybe root /usr and /var are on the same filesystem

Are the files sorted text files ? If not, are they in any particular order?

What you want to know from the "diff" command?
Do you just want to just know if the files are different?
Do you want to count the differences?
Do you want to see every difference?

opengroup.org the SUSv3 (POSIX) "keepers" -- suggests very strongly that TMPDIR be observed by all implementations of the core utilities. This allows users to specify temporary disk space. It is not a requirment, so it may not work for you.

It works for the implementations of diff I can get to right now: RHEL 4, HPUX 11.23

Code:

TMPDIR=/tmp  # or wherever there is free space and the directory is set up correctly.

It is worth a try at least.

And Methyl has it - using diff/bdiff on gigantic files is not a great idea. There must be a better way.