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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 arbitrary
     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 re-
     sync 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  differ-
     ences 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 replacement 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  re-
     ports, 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 abbreviated as a  sin-
     gle 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 sec-
     ond 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)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=fdiff&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

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