sdiff(1) - NetBSD Manual Pages

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SDIFF(1)                NetBSD General Commands Manual                SDIFF(1)


NAME

     sdiff -- side-by-side diff


SYNOPSIS

     sdiff [-abdilstW] [-I regexp] [-o outfile] [-w width] file1 file2


DESCRIPTION

     sdiff displays two files side by side, with any differences between the
     two highlighted as follows: new lines are marked with `>'; deleted lines
     are marked with `<'; and changed lines are marked with `|'.

     sdiff can also be used to interactively merge two files, prompting at
     each set of differences.  See the -o option for an explanation.

     The options are:

     -l      Only print the left column for identical lines.

     -o outfile
             Interactively merge file1 and file2 into outfile.  In this mode,
             the user is prompted for each set of differences.  See EDITOR and
             VISUAL, below, for details of which editor, if any, is invoked.

             The commands are as follows:

             l       Choose left set of diffs.

             r       Choose right set of diffs.

             s       Silent mode - identical lines are not printed.

             v       Verbose mode - identical lines are printed.

             e       Start editing an empty file, which will be merged into
                     outfile upon exiting the editor.

             e l     Start editing file with left set of diffs.

             e r     Start editing file with right set of diffs.

             e b     Start editing file with both sets of diffs.

             q       Quit sdiff.

     -s      Skip identical lines.

     -w width
             Print a maximum of width characters on each line.  The default is
             130 characters.

     Options passed to diff(1) are:

     -a      Treat file1 and file2 as text files.

     -b      Ignore trailing blank spaces.

     -d      Minimize diff size.

     -I regexp
             Ignore line changes matching regexp.  All lines in the change
             must match regexp for the change to be ignored.

     -i      Do a case-insensitive comparison.

     -t      Expand tabs to spaces.

     -W      Ignore all spaces (the -w flag is passed to diff(1)).


ENVIRONMENT

     EDITOR, VISUAL
             Specifies an editor to use with the -o option.  If both EDITOR
             and VISUAL are set, VISUAL takes precedence.  If neither EDITOR
             nor VISUAL are set, the default is vi(1).

     TMPDIR  Specifies a directory for temporary files to be created.  The
             default is /tmp.


SEE ALSO

     diff(1), diff3(1), vi(1), re_format(7)


AUTHORS

     sdiff was written from scratch for the public domain by Ray Lai
     <ray@cyth.net>.


CAVEATS

     Although undocumented, sdiff supports all options supported by GNU sdiff.
     Some options require GNU diff.

     Tabs are treated as anywhere from one to eight characters wide, depending
     on the current column.  Terminals that treat tabs as eight characters
     wide will look best.


BUGS

     sdiff may not work with binary data.

NetBSD 7.0                     February 21, 2007                    NetBSD 7.0