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NAME
gdiff - differential file and directory comparator (Berkeley
Version)
SYNOPSIS
gdiff [[ -lNrs ] [ -aBcefHhnpT ] [ -C cnt ] [ -FI regexp ] [
-biwt ]] ... dir1 dir2
gdiff [[ -cefhn ] [ -biwt ]] ... file1 file2
DESCRIPTION
If both arguments are directories, gdiff sorts the contents
of the directories by name, and then runs the regular file
gdiff algorithm (described below) on text files which are
different. Binary files which differ, common subdirec-
tories, and files which appear in only one directory are
listed. Options when comparing directories are:
-l long output format; each text file diff is piped
through pr(1) to paginate it, other differences are
remembered and summarized after all text file differ-
ences are reported.
-r causes application of gdiff recursively to common sub-
directories encountered.
-s causes gdiff to report files which are the same, which
are otherwise not mentioned.
-Sname
starts a directory gdiff in the middle beginning with
file name.
When run on regular files, and when comparing text files
which differ during directory comparison, gdiff tells what
lines must be changed in the files to bring them into agree-
ment. Except in rare circumstances, gdiff finds a smallest
sufficient set of file differences. If neither file1 nor
file2 is a directory, then either may be given as `-', in
which case the standard input is used. If file1 is a direc-
tory, then a file in that directory whose file-name is the
same as the file-name of file2 is used (and vice versa).
There are several options for output format; the default
output format contains lines of these forms:
n1 a n3,n4
n1,n2 d n3
n1,n2 c n3,n4
These lines resemble ed commands to convert file1 into
file2. The numbers after the letters pertain to file2. In
fact, by exchanging `a' for `d' and reading backward one may
ascertain equally how to convert file2 into file1. As in
ed, identical pairs where n1 = n2 or n3 = n4 are abbreviated
as a single number.
Following each of these lines come all the lines that are
affected in the first file flagged by `<', then all the
lines that are affected in the second file flagged by `>'.
Except for -b, -w, -i or -t which may be given with any of
the others, the following options are mutually exclusive:
-e produces a script of a, c and d commands for the
editor ed, which will recreate file2 from file1.
In connection with -e, the following shell program
may help maintain multiple versions of a file.
Only an ancestral file ($1) and a chain of
version-to-version ed scripts ($2,$3,...) made by
gdiff need be on hand. A `latest version' appears
on the standard output.
(shift; cat $*; echo '1,$p') | ed - $1
Extra commands are added to the output when compar-
ing directories with -e, so that the result is a
sh(1) script for converting text files which are
common to the two directories from their state in
dir1 to their state in dir2.
-f produces a script similar to that of -e, not useful
with ed, and in the opposite order.
-n produces a script similar to that of -e, but in the
opposite order and with a count of changed lines on
each insert or delete command. This is the form
used by rcsdiff(1d).
-c produces a diff with lines of context. The default
is to present 3 lines of context and may be
changed, e.g to 10, by -c10. With -c the output
format is modified slightly: the output beginning
with identification of the files involved and their
creation dates and then each change is separated by
a line with a dozen *'s. The lines removed from
file1 are marked with `- '; those added to file2
are marked `+ '. Lines which are changed from one
file to the other are marked in both files with
with `! '.
Changes which lie within <context> lines of each
other are grouped together on output. (This is a
change from the previous ``diff -c'' but the
resulting output is usually much easier to inter-
pret.)
-h does a fast, half-hearted job. It works only when
changed stretches are short and well separated, but
does work on files of unlimited length.
-b causes trailing blanks (spaces and tabs) to be
ignored, and other strings of blanks to compare
equal.
-w is similar to -b but causes whitespace (blanks and
tabs) to be totally ignored. E.g.,
``if ( a == b )'' will compare equal to
``if(a==b)''.
-i ignores the case of letters. E.g., ``A'' will com-
pare equal to ``a''.
-t will expand tabs in output lines. Normal or -c
output adds character(s) to the front of each line
which may screw up the indentation of the original
source lines and make the output listing difficult
to interpret. This option will preserve the origi-
nal source's indentation.
FILES
/tmp/d?????
/usr/local/dist/gdiff for directory diffs
/bin/pr
SEE ALSO
cmp(1), cc(1), comm(1), ed(1), gdiff3(1d)
DIAGNOSTICS
Exit status is 0 for no differences, 1 for some, 2 for trou-
ble.
BUGS
Editing scripts produced under the -e or -f option are naive
about creating lines consisting of a single `.'.
When comparing directories with the -b, -w or -i options
specified, diff first compares the files ala cmp, and then
decides to run the diff algorithm if they are not equal.
This may cause a small amount of spurious output if the
files then turn out to be identical because the only differ-
ences are insignificant blank string or case differences.
--------------------
NAME
diff - GNU diff, display line-by-line differences between
files, including binary files
SYNOPSIS
diff [ options ] filename1 filename2
diff [ options ] directory1 directory2
WARNING
This manual page is updated only occasionally, because the
GNU project does not use nroff.
DESCRIPTION
This version of diff provides all the features of BSD's
diff. It has the following additional features.
An input file may end in a non-newline character. If so,
its last line is called an incomplete line and is dis-
tinguished on output from a full line. In the default, -c,
and -u output styles, an incomplete output line is followed
by a diagnostic line that starts with \. With -n, an incom-
plete line is output without a trailing newline. Other out-
put styles (-D, -e, -f) cannot represent an incomplete line,
so they pretend that there was a newline, and -e and -f also
print an error message.
For example, suppose F and G are one-byte files that contain
just `f' and `g', respectively. Then `diff F G' outputs
1c1
< f
\ No newline at end of file
---
> g
\ No newline at end of file
(The exact diagnostic message may differ, e.g. for non-
English locales.) `diff -n F G' outputs the following
without a trailing newline:
d1 1
a1 1
g
`diff -e F G' sends two diagnostics to standard error and
the following to standard output:
1c
g
.
A file is considered to be text if its first characters are
all in the ISO 8859 character set; BSD's diff uses ASCII.
OPTIONS
GNU diff has the following additional options:
-a Always treat files as text and compare them
line-by-line, even if they do not appear to
be text.
-B Ignore changes that just insert or delete
blank lines.
-C # Request -c format and specify number of con-
text lines.
-F regexp In context format, for each unit of differ-
ences, show some of the last preceding line
that matches the specified regexp.
-H Use heuristics to speed handling of large
files that have numerous scattered small
changes. The algorithm becomes asymptoti-
cally linear for such files!
-I regexp Ignore changes that just insert or delete
lines that match the specified regexp.
-L label Use the specified label in file header lines
output by the -c option. This option may be
given zero, one, or two times, to affect nei-
ther label, just the first file's label, or
both labels. A file's default label is its
name, a tab, and its modification date.
-N In directory comparison, if a file is found
in only one directory, treat it as present
but empty in the other directory.
-p equivalent to -c -F'^[_a-zA-Z]'. This is
useful for C code because it shows which
function each change is in.
-T Print a tab rather than a space before the
text of a line in normal or context format.
This causes the alignment of tabs in the line
to look normal.
-u [#] Produce unified style output with # context
lines (default 3). This style is like -c,
but it is more compact because context lines
are printed only once. Lines from just the
first file are marked '-'; lines from just
the second file are marked '+'.
SEE ALSO
diff3(1)