DIFF3(1) | General Commands Manual | DIFF3(1) |
diff3
— 3-way
differential file comparison
diff3 |
[-3aEeXx ] file1 file2
file3 |
The diff3
utility compares the contents of
three different versions of a file, file1,
file2 and file3, writing the
result to the standard output. The options describe different methods of
merging and purging the separate versions into a new file.
diff3
is used by
rcs(1) to merge specific
versions or create new versions.
The options are as follows:
-3
-a
-E
,
-X
-e
and -x
,
respectively, but treat overlapping changes (i.e., changes that would be
noted with ==== in the normal listing) differently. The overlapping lines
from both files will be inserted by the edit script, bracketed by
"<<<<<<" and
">>>>>>" lines.-e
-e
option ignores differences specific to
file1 and file2, and those
specific to file2 and file3.
It is useful for backing out changes specific to
file2 only.-x
The -E
option is used by RCS
merge(1) to ensure that
overlapping changes in the merged files are preserved and brought to
someone's attention.
For example, suppose lines 7-8 are changed in both file1 and file2. Applying the edit script generated by the command
$ diff3 -E file1 file2
file3
to file1 results in the file:
lines 1-6 of file1 <<<<<<< file1 lines 7-8 of file1 ======= lines 7-8 of file3 >>>>>>> file3 rest of file1
The default output of diff3
makes notation
of the differences between all files, and those differences specific to each
pair of files. The changes are described by the commands necessary for
ed(1) to create the desired
target from the different versions. See
diff(1) for a description of
the commands.
====
TMPDIR
TMPDIR
exists,
diff3
will use the directory specified by
TMPDIR
as the temporary directory.A diff3
command appeared in
Version 7 AT&T UNIX.
The -e
option cannot catch and change
lines which have ‘.
’ as the first and
only character on the line. The resulting script will fail on that line as
‘.
’ is an
ed(1) editing command.
May 31, 2007 | OpenBSD-6.7 |