Comparing and Merging Files

Short Contents

• Comparing and Merging Files
• Overview
• What Comparison Means
• diff Output Formats
• Incomplete Lines
• Comparing Directories
• Making diff Output Prettier
• diff Performance Tradeoffs
• Comparing Three Files
• Merging From a Common Ancestor
• Interactive Merging with sdiff
• Merging with patch
• Tips for Making and Using Patches
• Invoking cmp
• Invoking diff
• Invoking diff3
• Invoking patch
• Invoking sdiff
• Standards conformance
• Future Projects
• Copying This Manual
• Index

Table of Contents

• Comparing and Merging Files
• Overview
• What Comparison Means
  • Hunks
  • Suppressing Differences in Blank and Tab Spacing
  • Suppressing Differences in Blank Lines
  • Suppressing Case Differences
  • Suppressing Lines Matching a Regular Expression
  • Summarizing Which Files Differ
  • Binary Files and Forcing Text Comparisons
• diff Output Formats
  • Two Sample Input Files
  • Showing Differences Without Context
    • Detailed Description of Normal Format
    • An Example of Normal Format
  • Showing Differences in Their Context
    • Context Format
      • Detailed Description of Context Format
      • An Example of Context Format
      • An Example of Context Format with Less Context
    • Unified Format
      • Detailed Description of Unified Format
      • An Example of Unified Format
    • Showing Which Sections Differences Are in
      • Showing Lines That Match Regular Expressions
      • Showing C Function Headings
    • Showing Alternate File Names
  • Showing Differences Side by Side
    • Controlling Side by Side Format
    • An Example of Side by Side Format
  • Making Edit Scripts
    • ed Scripts
      • Detailed Description of ed Format
      • Example ed Script
    • Forward ed Scripts
    • RCS Scripts
  • Merging Files with If-then-else
    • Line Group Formats
    • Line Formats
    • Detailed Description of If-then-else Format
    • An Example of If-then-else Format
• Incomplete Lines
• Comparing Directories
• Making diff Output Prettier
  • Preserving Tab Stop Alignment
  • Paginating diff Output
• diff Performance Tradeoffs
• Comparing Three Files
  • A Third Sample Input File
  • Detailed Description of diff3 Normal Format
  • diff3 Hunks
  • An Example of diff3 Normal Format
• Merging From a Common Ancestor
  • Selecting Which Changes to Incorporate
  • Marking Conflicts
  • Generating the Merged Output Directly
  • How diff3 Merges Incomplete Lines
  • Saving the Changed File
• Interactive Merging with sdiff
  • Specifying diff Options to sdiff
  • Merge Commands
• Merging with patch
  • Selecting the patch Input Format
  • Revision Control
  • Applying Imperfect Patches
    • Applying Patches with Changed White Space
    • Applying Reversed Patches
    • Helping patch Find Inexact Matches
    • Predicting what patch will do
  • Creating and Removing Files
  • Updating Time Stamps on Patched Files
  • Multiple Patches in a File
  • Applying Patches in Other Directories
  • Backup Files
  • Backup File Names
  • Reject File Names
  • Messages and Questions from patch
    • Controlling the Verbosity of patch
    • Inhibiting Keyboard Input
    • patch Quoting Style
  • patch and the POSIX Standard
  • GNU patch and Traditional patch
• Tips for Making and Using Patches
  • Tips for Patch Producers
  • Tips for Patch Consumers
  • Avoiding Common Mistakes
  • Generating Smaller Patches
• Invoking cmp
  • Options to cmp
• Invoking diff
  • Options to diff
• Invoking diff3
  • Options to diff3
• Invoking patch
  • Options to patch
• Invoking sdiff
  • Options to sdiff
• Standards conformance
• Future Projects
  • Suggested Projects for Improving GNU diff and patch
    • Handling Multibyte and Varying-Width Characters
    • Handling Changes to the Directory Structure
    • Files that are Neither Directories Nor Regular Files
    • File Names that Contain Unusual Characters
    • Outputting Diffs in Time Stamp Order
    • Ignoring Certain Changes
    • Improving Performance
  • Reporting Bugs
• Copying This Manual
  • GNU Free Documentation License
    • ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents
• Index

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Comparing and Merging Files

Copyright © 1992, 1993, 1994, 1998, 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with the Front-Cover texts being "A GNU Manual," and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License."

(a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: "You have freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development."

• Overview: Preliminary information.
• Comparison: What file comparison means.

• Output Formats: Formats for two-way difference reports.
• Incomplete Lines: Lines that lack trailing newlines.
• Comparing Directories: Comparing files and directories.
• Adjusting Output: Making diff output prettier.
• diff Performance: Making diff smarter or faster.

• Comparing Three Files: Formats for three-way difference reports.
• diff3 Merging: Merging from a common ancestor.

• Interactive Merging: Interactive merging with sdiff.

• Merging with patch: Using patch to change old files into new ones.
• Making Patches: Tips for making and using patch distributions.

• Invoking cmp: Compare two files byte by byte.
• Invoking diff: Compare two files line by line.
• Invoking diff3: Compare three files line by line.
• Invoking patch: Apply a diff file to an original.
• Invoking sdiff: Side-by-side merge of file differences.

• Standards conformance: Conformance to the POSIX standard.
• Projects: If you've found a bug or other shortcoming.

• Copying This Manual: How to make copies of this manual.
• Index: Index.