Size of one file is 200 Mb, while the size of another file is 20 Mb. I need to press ctrl+c to stop loading the big file, when no vimdiff mode is enabled although I run:
vimdiff <(hexdump -C r328.raw) <(hexdump -C r328_000.raw)
so I am here now but I would like to have colours for differences:
How can you start vimdiff of two files in vertical mode?
You could use use the --length option of hexdump to only load 20Mb of the large file so you don't have to cancel what Vim is doing as @Carpetsmoker mentioned. Ex:
vimdiff <(hexdump -C --length=20000000 big) <(hexdump -C small)
By default vim -d (at least my version, 7.4) will open files in vertical mode, i.e. side by side. (This is equivalent to using -O option.)
To open files in "stacked" mode, i.e. one below another, add -o option.
To extend on accepted answer: you can just read exactly same number of bytes from both files:
vimdiff <(hexdump -C -n $(stat -c %s small) big) <(hexdump -C small)
On Mac OSX, the command will instead be:
vimdiff <(hexdump -C -n $(stat -f %z small) big) <(hexdump -C small)
^Cwill abort whatever Vim is doing, such as applying colours. You probably just need to be more patient...:diffupdatedifftool and parses the output of that. If you want to have it behave different, you'll have to write your own diffexpr function (:help diff-diffexpr)...