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Annotation of lucent/sys/man/1/diff, revision 1.1

1.1     ! root        1: .TH DIFF 1 
        !             2: .SH NAME
        !             3: diff \- differential file comparator
        !             4: .SH SYNOPSIS
        !             5: .B diff
        !             6: [
        !             7: .B -efbwr
        !             8: ] file1 ... file2
        !             9: .SH DESCRIPTION
        !            10: .I Diff
        !            11: tells what lines must be changed in two files to bring them
        !            12: into agreement.
        !            13: If one file
        !            14: is a directory,
        !            15: then a file in that directory with basename the same as that of
        !            16: the other file is used.
        !            17: If both files are directories, similarly named files in the
        !            18: two directories are compared by the method of 
        !            19: .I diff
        !            20: for text
        !            21: files and
        !            22: .IR cmp (1)
        !            23: otherwise.
        !            24: If more than two file names are given, then each argument is compared
        !            25: to the last argument as above.
        !            26: The 
        !            27: .B -r
        !            28: option causes
        !            29: .I diff
        !            30: to process similarly named subdirectories recursively.
        !            31: The normal output contains lines of these forms:
        !            32: .IP "" 5
        !            33: .I n1
        !            34: .B a
        !            35: .I n3,n4
        !            36: .br
        !            37: .I n1,n2
        !            38: .B d
        !            39: .I n3
        !            40: .br
        !            41: .I n1,n2
        !            42: .B c
        !            43: .I n3,n4
        !            44: .PP
        !            45: These lines resemble
        !            46: .I ed
        !            47: commands to convert
        !            48: .I file1
        !            49: into
        !            50: .IR file2 .
        !            51: The numbers after the letters pertain to
        !            52: .IR file2 .
        !            53: In fact, by exchanging `a' for `d' and reading backward
        !            54: one may ascertain equally how to convert 
        !            55: .I file2
        !            56: into
        !            57: .IR file1 .
        !            58: As in 
        !            59: .IR ed ,
        !            60: identical pairs where
        !            61: .I n1
        !            62: =
        !            63: .I n2
        !            64: or
        !            65: .I n3
        !            66: =
        !            67: .I n4
        !            68: are abbreviated as a single number.
        !            69: .PP
        !            70: Following each of these lines come all the lines that are
        !            71: affected in the first file flagged by `<', 
        !            72: then all the lines that are affected in the second file
        !            73: flagged by `>'.
        !            74: .PP
        !            75: The
        !            76: .B -b
        !            77: option causes
        !            78: trailing blanks (spaces and tabs) to be ignored
        !            79: and other strings of blanks to compare equal.
        !            80: The
        !            81: .B -w
        !            82: option causes all white-space to be removed from input lines
        !            83: before applying the difference algorithm.
        !            84: .PP
        !            85: The
        !            86: .B -e
        !            87: option produces a script of
        !            88: .I "a, c"
        !            89: and 
        !            90: .I d
        !            91: commands for the editor
        !            92: .IR ed ,
        !            93: which will recreate
        !            94: .I file2
        !            95: from
        !            96: .IR file1 .
        !            97: The
        !            98: .B -f
        !            99: option produces a similar script,
        !           100: not useful with
        !           101: .IR ed ,
        !           102: in the opposite order. It may, however, be
        !           103: useful as input to a stream-oriented post-processor.
        !           104: .PP
        !           105: Except in rare circumstances,
        !           106: .I diff
        !           107: finds a smallest sufficient set of file
        !           108: differences.
        !           109: .SH FILES
        !           110: .B /tmp/diff[12]
        !           111: .SH SOURCE
        !           112: .B /sys/src/cmd/diff
        !           113: .SH "SEE ALSO"
        !           114: .IR cmp (1),
        !           115: .IR ed (1)
        !           116: .SH DIAGNOSTICS
        !           117: Exit status is the empty string
        !           118: for no differences,
        !           119: .L some
        !           120: for some, 
        !           121: and
        !           122: .L error
        !           123: for trouble.
        !           124: .SH BUGS
        !           125: Editing scripts produced under the
        !           126: .BR -e " or"
        !           127: .BR -f " option are naive about"
        !           128: creating lines consisting of a single `\fB.\fR'.
        !           129: .br
        !           130: When running
        !           131: .I diff
        !           132: on directories, the notion of what is a text
        !           133: file is open to debate.

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