diff.1 (2010 09)

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diff(1) diff(1)

NAME

diff - differential ﬁle and directory comparator

SYNOPSIS

diff [-C n ][-S name ][

-lrs][-bcefhintw] dir1 dir2

diff [-C n ][-S name ][

-bcefhintw] ﬁle1 ﬁle2

diff [-D string ][-biw

] ﬁle1 ﬁle2

DESCRIPTION

Comparing Directories

If both arguments are directories,

diff sorts the contents of the directories by name, then runs the reg-

ular ﬁle diff 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 following options are recognized:

-l Long output format; each text ﬁle

diff is piped through pr to paginate it (see pr(1)).

Other differences are remembered and summarized after all text ﬁle differences are

reported.

-r Applies diff recursively to common subdirectories encountered.

-s diff reports ﬁles that are identical but otherwise not mentioned.

-S name Starts a directory diff 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,

diff

tells what lines must be changed in the ﬁles to bring them into agreement. diff usually ﬁnds a smal-

lest sufﬁcient set of ﬁle differences. However, it can be misled by lines containing 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 directory 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 fol-

lowing:

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 backwards one may ascertain equally how to convert

ﬁle2 into ﬁle1 .Asined, 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 can be given with any of the others, the following options are mutu-

ally exclusive:

-e Produce a script of a, c, and d commands for the ed editor suitable for recreating ﬁle2

from ﬁle1. Extra commands are added to the output when comparing directories with -e,

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 .

-f Produce a script similar to that of the -e option that is not useful with ed but is more

readable by humans.

-n Produce 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 (see

rcsdiff(1)).

-c Produce a difference list with 3 lines of context. -c 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 ( * )s. 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

HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 1

Summary of content (4 pages)

PAGE 1
diff(1) diff(1) NAME diff - differential file and directory comparator SYNOPSIS diff [-C n ] [-S name ] [-lrs] [-bcefhintw] dir1 dir2 diff [-C n ] [-S name ] [-bcefhintw] file1 file2 diff [-D string ] [-biw] file1 file2 DESCRIPTION Comparing Directories If both arguments are directories, diff sorts the contents of the directories by name, then runs the regular file diff algorithm (described below) on text files that have the same name in each directory but are different.
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diff(1) diff(1) within 3 lines of each other in the file are grouped together on output. -C n Output format similar to -c but with n lines of context. -h 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 unlimited length.
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diff(1) diff(1) The following command ignores all blanks and tabs and ignores uppercase-lowercase differences. diff -wi x1 x2 WARNINGS Editing scripts produced by the -e or -f option are naive about creating lines consisting of a single dot (.). When comparing directories with the -b, -w, or -i options specified, diff first compares the files in the same manner as cmp, then runs the diff algorithm if they are not equal.
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(Notes) A (Notes) dA 4 Hewlett-Packard Company −1− HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010