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diff(1) General Commands Manual diff(1) NAME diff - differential file and directory comparator SYNOPSIS n] name] dir1 dir2 n] name] file1 file2 string] file1 file2 DESCRIPTION Comparing Directories If both arguments are directories, sorts the contents of the directo- ries by name, then runs the regular file algorithm (described below) on text files that have the same name in each directory but are different. Binary files that differ, common subdirectories, and files that appear in only one directory are listed. When comparing directories, the fol- lowing options are recognized: Long output format; each text file is piped through to paginate it (see pr(1)). Other differences are remembered and summarized after all text file differences are reported. Applies recursively to common subdirectories encountered. reports files that are identical but otherwise not mentioned. Starts a directory in the middle of the sorted directory, beginning with file name. Comparing Files When run on regular files, and when comparing text files that differ during directory comparison, tells what lines must be changed in the files to bring them into agreement. usually finds a smallest suffi- cient set of file differences. However, it can be misled by lines con- taining very few characters or by other situations. If neither file1 nor file2 is a directory, either can be specified as in which case the standard input is used. If file1 is a directory, a file in that direc- tory whose filename is the same as the filename of file2 is used (and vice versa). There are several options for output format. The default output format contains lines resembling the following: n1 n3 These lines resemble commands to convert file1 into file2. The numbers after the letters pertain to file2. In fact, by exchanging for and reading backwards one may ascertain equally how to convert file2 into file1. As in 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 or which can be given with any of the others, the following options are mutually exclusive: Produce a script of and commands for the editor suitable for recreating file2 from file1. Extra commands are added to the out- put when comparing directories with so that the result is a shell script for converting text files common to the two directories from their state in dir1 to their state in dir2 (see sh-bourne(1) Produce a script similar to that of the option that is not useful with but is more readable by humans. Produce a script similar to that of but in the opposite order, and with a count of changed lines on each insert or delete command. This is the form used by (see rcsdiff(1)). Produce a difference list with 3 lines of context. modifies the output format slightly: the output begins with identification of the files involved, followed by their creation dates, then each change separated by a line containing about twelve asterisks Lines removed from file1 are marked with and lines added to file2 are marked Lines that change from one file to the other are marked in both files with with Changes that lie within 3 lines of each other in the file are grouped together on output. Output format similar to but with n lines of context. Do a fast, half-hearted job. This option works only when changed stretches are short and well separated, but can be used on files of unlim- ited length. Create a merged version of file1 and file2 on the standard output, with C pre- processor controls included so that a compilation of the result without defining string is equivalent to compiling file1, while compiling the result with string defined is equivalent to compiling file2. Ignore trailing blanks (spaces and tabs) and treat other strings of blanks as equal. Ignore all whitespace (blanks and tabs). For example, and are treated as equal. Ignores uppercase/lowercase differences. Thus is treated the same as Expand tabs in output lines. Normal or output adds one or more characters to the front of each line. Resulting misalignment of indenta- tion in the original source lines can make the output listing difficult to interpret. This option preserves original source file indentation. EXTERNAL INFLUENCES Environment Variables determines the locale to use for the locale categories when both and the corresponding environment variable (beginning with do not specify a locale. If is not set or is set to the empty string, a default of "C" (see lang(5)) is used. determines the space characters for the command, and the interpretation of text within file as single- and/or multi-byte characters. determines the language in which messages are displayed. If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, and behave as if all internationalization variables are set to "C". See environ(5). International Code Set Support Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported with the ex- ception that and do not recognize multi-byte alternative space charac- ters. RETURN VALUE Upon completion, returns with one of the following exit values: 0 No differences were found. 1 Differences were found. >1 An error occurred. EXAMPLES The following command creates a script file is added to the end of the script in order to save the file: The script file can then be used to create the file from the file using the editor in the following manner: The following command produces the difference output with 2 lines of context information before and after the line that was different: The following command ignores all blanks and tabs and ignores upper- case-lowercase differences. WARNINGS Editing scripts produced by the or option are naive about creating lines consisting of a single dot When comparing directories with the or options specified, first com- pares the files in the same manner as then runs the algorithm if they are not equal. This may cause a small amount of spurious output if the files are identical except for insignificant blank strings or upper- case/lowercase differences. The default algorithm requires memory allocation of roughly six times the size of the file. If sufficient memory is not available for han- dling large files, the option or can be used (see bdiff(1)). When run on directories with the option, recursively descends sub- trees. When comparing deep multi-level directories, more memory may be required than is currently available on the system. The amount of mem- ory required depends on the depth of recursion and the size of the files. AUTHOR was developed by AT&T, the University of California, Berkeley, and HP. FILES used by option SEE ALSO bdiff(1), cmp(1), comm(1), diff3(1), diffmk(1), dircmp(1), ed(1), more(1), nroff(1), rcsdiff(1), sccsdiff(1), sdiff(1), terminfo(4). STANDARDS CONFORMANCE diff(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | EXTERNAL INFLUENCES | RETURN VALUE | EXAMPLES | WARNINGS | AUTHOR | FILES | SEE ALSO | STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
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