diff3 - 3-way differential file comparison

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SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

====

all three files differ

====1

file1 is different

====2

file2 is different

====3

file3 is different

The type of change suffered in converting a given range of a given file to some other is indicated in one of these ways:

f : n1 a

Text is to be appended after line number n1 in file f, where f = 1, 2, or 3.

f : n1 , n2 c

Text is to be changed in the range line n1 to line n2. If n1 = n2, the range may be abbreviated to n1.

The original contents of the range follows immediately after a c indication. When the contents of two files are identical, the contents of the lower-numbered file is suppressed.

Under the -e option, diff3 publishes a script for the editor ed that will incorporate into file1 all changes between file2 and file3, i.e. the changes that normally would be flagged ==== and ====3. Option -x (-3) produces a script to incorporate only changes flagged ==== (====3). The following command will apply the resulting script to `file1'.

                                (cat script; echo '1,$p') | ed - file1

The -E and -X are similar to -e and -x, respectively, but treat overlapping changes (i.e., changes that would be flagged with ==== in the normal listing) differently. The overlapping lines from both files will be inserted by the edit script, bracketed by "<<<<<<" and ">>>>>>" lines.

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 -E option is used by RCS merge.1 to insure that overlapping changes in the merged files are preserved and brought to someone's attention.

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Created by unroff & hp-tools. © somebody (See intro for details). All Rights Reserved. Last modified 11/5/97