Name
diff3
Synopsis
diff3 [options
]file1 file2 file3
Compares three files and reports the differences. No more than one of the files may be given as - (indicating that it is to be read from standard input). The output is displayed with the following codes:
- ====
All three files differ.
- ====1
file1
is different.- ====2
file2
is different.- ====3
file3
is different.
diff3
is also designed to merge changes in two
differing files based on a common ancestor file (i.e., when two
people have made their own set of changes to the same file).
diff3
can find changes between the ancestor and
one of the newer files and generate output that adds those
differences to the other new file. Unmerged changes are places where
both newer files differ from each other and at least one of them is
from the ancestor. Changes from the ancestor that are the same in
both of the newer files are called merged
changes. If all three files differ in the same
place, it is called an overlapping
change.
This scheme is used on the command line with the ancestor being
file2
, the second filename. Comparison is
made between file2
and
file3
, with those differences then applied
to file1
.
Options
-
-3
,--easy-only
Create an
ed
script to incorporate intofile1
unmerged, non-overlapping differences betweenfile1
andfile3
.-
-a
,--text
Treat files as text.
-
-A
,--show-all
Create an
ed
script to incorporate all changes, showing conflicts in bracketed format.-
-e
,--ed
Create an
ed
script to incorporate intofile1
all unmerged differences between ...
Get Mac OS X Panther in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.