simple shell script to compare two dirs recursively

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 2 Nov 2020 22:06:03 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>On Mon, 2 Nov 2020 19:45:42 +0000 (UTC), doug wrote:
>>then awk is your best friend  
>
>I seriously doubt that diff in combination with awk is a friend, if the
>premiss is...
>
>On Mon, 2 Nov 2020 19:11:41 +0100, Per olof Ljungmark wrote:
>>I could *probably* cook this myself with some time and patience, but
>>now it is somewhat urgent, so if someone likes to share their already 
>>working solution I would be most grateful.  
>
>...unless you already know what to do.
>
>IIUC the OP is asking for a script ruling out pitfalls of "simple" diff
>+ whatsover usage, without a time consuming learning curve.
>
>I don't have got the skills to provide a solution, since I'm aware of
>at least a few possible pitfalls.
>
>It might be helpful to know what paths should be compared, resp. what
>the possible contend of those paths (most likely) is.

For example, do you want to compare a source and a backup made by a
copy command?

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?cp

"-H	   If the -R option is specified, symbolic links on
the	command	line are followed.  (Symbolic links
encountered in the tree traversal are not followed.)

     -L	   If the -R option is specified, all symbolic links are
     followed.

     -P	   If the -R option is specified, no symbolic links
     are	followed. This	is the default."