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UDIFF(1)		    Schily's USER COMMANDS		      UDIFF(1)

NAME
       udiff, fdiff, fsdiff - shows where two files differ

SYNOPSIS
       udiff [ options ] file1 file2

       fdiff [ options ] file1 file2

       fsdiff [	options	] file1	file2

DESCRIPTION
       udiff  shows what lines differ between two files.  udiff	supports arbi-
       trary line lengths and treats binary files the same as text files.

       It does not support many	options	or features and	there is no best match
       resync mechanism, but the output	is typically identical to  the	output
       from the	classical UNIX diff(1).

       If  called  as  fdiff or	fsdiff,	the POSIX output style is used and the
       nmatch=#	resync default value is	set to 1 line.

       If called as fsdiff, the	exit code is compatible	to bdiff(1)  and  dif-
       ferences	 in  the files still result in a zero exit code; only an error
       causes a	non-zero exit code.  This allows fsdiff	to be used  as	a  re-
       placement for the bdiff program for SCCS.

       Since  the  performance	of udiff is only a linear function of the file
       size, using fsdiff speeds up SCCS with large files.

       Since the differences reported by fsdiff	are smaller  that  what	 bdiff
       reports,	this helps to keep SCCS	history	files smaller.

       The normal output if called as udiff contains lines of these forms:

	 -------- 1 line deleted at %ld:
	 -------- %ld lines deleted at %ld:
	 -------- 1 line added at %ld:
	 -------- %ld lines added at %ld:
	 -------- 1 line changed at %ld	from:
	 -------- %ld lines changed at %ld-%ld from:
	 -------- 1 line changed to %ld	lines at %ld from:
	 -------- %ld lines changed to 1 line at %ld-%ld from:
	 -------- %ld lines changed to %ld lines at %ld-%ld from:
	 -------- to:

       followed	 by  blocks  with the changed text.  This is easier to read by
       humans than the POSIX output variant.

       The POSIX output	variant	contains lines of these	forms:

	 n1 a n3,n4
	 n1,n2 d n3
	 n1,n2 c n3,n4

       where n1	and n2 represent lines file1 and n3 and	n4 represent lines  in
       file2  These  lines  resemble ed(1) commands to convert file1 to	file2.
       By exchanging a for d and reading backward, file2 can be	 converted  to
       file1.	As  in ed, identical pairs, where n1=n2	or n3=n4, are abbrevi-
       ated 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 `>'.

OPTIONS
       -help  Prints a short summary of	the udiff options and exists.

       -version
	      Prints the udiff version number string and exists.

       nmatch=#
	      Sets the number of matching lines	to resync.  If udiff is	called
	      as udiff,	the default is two lines, otherwise it is one line.

       -posix Output the differences in	POSIX style  instead  of  using	 udiff
	      style.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values are returned:

       0      No differences were found	(udiff and fdiff only).

       0      No error occurred	(fsdiff	only).

       1      Differences were found (udiff and	fdiff only).

       other  An error occurred.

NOTES
       No output is generated if the files are the same.

BUGS
       None currently known.

       Mail  bugs and suggestions to schilytools@mlists.in-berlin.de or	open a
       ticket at https://codeberg.org/schilytools/schilytools/issues.

       The mailing list	archive	may be found at:

       https://mlists.in-berlin.de/mailman/listinfo/schilytools-mlists.in-berlin.de.

AUTHOR
       udiff was written 1985 -	2020 by	Joerg Schilling	and is now  maintained
       by the schilytools project authors.

SOURCE DOWNLOAD
       The  source  code  for udiff is included	in the schilytools project and
       may be retrieved	from the schilytools project at	Codeberg at

       https://codeberg.org/schilytools/schilytools.

       The download directory is

       https://codeberg.org/schilytools/schilytools/releases.

Joerg Schilling			  2022/08/21			      UDIFF(1)

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