NAME
diff3 - 3-way differential file comparison
SYNOPSIS
diff3 [ -ex3 ] file1 file2 file3
DESCRIPTION
Diff3 compares three versions of a file, and publishes disagreeing ranges of text flagged with these codes:
- ====
- 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
FILES
/tmp/d3?????
/usr/lib/diff3
SEE ALSO
diff(1)
BUGS
Text lines that consist of a single `.' will defeat -e.
Files longer than 64K bytes won't work.