diff3(1)

diff3 -- 3-way differential file comparison

Synopsis

diff3 [-exEX3] 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.

-e: Produce a script for the editor ed(1) that will incorporate into file1 all changes between file2 and file3, that is, the changes that normally would be flagged ==== and ====3.
-x: Produce a script to incorporate only changes flagged ====.
-3: Produce a script to incorporate only changes flagged ====3.
-E: Produce a script that will incorporate all changes between file2 and file3, but treat overlapping changes (that is, changes that would be flagged with ==== in the normal listing) differently. The overlapping lines from both files will be inserted by the edit script, bracketed by <<<<<< and >>>>>> lines.
-X: Produce a script that will incorporate only changes flagged ====, but treat these changes in the manner of the -E option.

The following command will apply the resulting script to file1.

cat script; echo '1,$p') | ed - file1

Files

/tmp/d3*
/usr/lib/diff3prog
/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/uxdfm: language-specific message file (see LANG on environ(5)).

References

diff(1)

Notices

Text lines that consist of a single ``.'' will defeat -e. Files longer than 64K bytes will not work.