NAME
sdiff — side-by-side difference program
SYNOPSIS
sdiff
[options ...]
file1 file2
DESCRIPTION
sdiff
uses the output of
diff(1)
with the
-b
option,
which ignores trailing blanks (spaces and tabs) and treats other
strings of blanks as equal,
to produce a side-by-side listing of two files,
indicating those lines that are different.
Each line of the two files is printed
with a blank gutter between them if the lines are identical, a
<
in the gutter if the line only exists in
file1,
a
>
in the gutter if the line only exists in
file2,
and a
|
for lines that are different.
For example:
Options
sdiff
recognizes the following options:
- -w n
Use the next argument,
n,
as the width of the output line. The maximum
value of
n
is 2048 (LINE_MAX).
The default line length is 130 characters.
- -l
Only print on the left side when lines are identical.
- -s
Do not print identical lines.
- -o output
Use the next argument,
output,
as the name of a third file that is created
as a user-controlled merging of
file1
and
file2.
Identical lines of
file1
and
file2
are copied to
output.
Sets of differences, as produced by
diff(1),
are printed;
where a set of differences share a common gutter character.
After printing each set of differences,
sdiff
prompts the user with a
%
and waits for one of the following user-typed commands:
- l
append the left column to the output file
- r
append the right column to the output file
- s
turn on silent mode; do not print identical lines
- v
turn off silent mode
- e l
call the editor with the left column
- e r
call the editor with the right column
- e b
call the editor with the concatenation of left and right
- e
call the editor with a zero length file
- q
exit from the program
On exit from the editor,
the resulting file is concatenated on the end of the
output
file.
EXAMPLES
Print a side-by-side diff of two versions of a file
on a printer capable of printing 132 columns:
sdiff -w132 prog.c.old prog.c | lp -dlineprinter
Retrieve the most recently checked in version of a file from
RCS
and compare it with the version currently checked out:
co -p prog.c > /tmp/$$; sdiff /tmp/$$ prog.c | more; rm /tmp/$$
Printable version
