bdiff(1) [osf1 man page]
bdiff(1) General Commands Manual bdiff(1) NAME
bdiff - Finds differences in large files SYNOPSIS
bdiff file1 file2 [number] [-s] bdiff - file2 [number] [-s] bdiff file1 - [number] [-s] The bdiff command compares file1 and file2 and writes information about their differing lines to standard output. If either filename is - (dash), bdiff reads standard input. OPTIONS
Suppresses error messages. (May either precede or follow the number argument if it is specified.) DESCRIPTION
The bdiff command uses diff to find lines that must be changed in two files to make them identical (see the diff command). Its primary purpose is to permit processing of files that are too large for diff. The bdiff command ignores lines common to the beginning of both files, splits the remainders into sections of number lines, and runs diff on the sections. The output is then processed to make it look as if diff had processed the files whole. If you do not specify number, a system default is used. In some cases, the number you specify or the default number may be too large for diff. If bdiff fails, specify a smaller value for number and try again. Note that because of file segmenting, bdiff does not necessarily find the smallest possible set of file differences. In general, although the output is similar, using bdiff is not the equivalent of using diff. NOTES
The diff command is executed by a child process, generated by forking, and communicates with bdiff through pipes. It should not normally be necessary to use this command, since diff can handle most large files. EXIT STATUS
No differences. Differences found. An error occurred. SEE ALSO
Commands: diff(1), diff3(1) bdiff(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
bdiff(1) User Commands bdiff(1) NAME
bdiff - big diff SYNOPSIS
bdiff filename1 filename2 [n] [-s] DESCRIPTION
bdiff is used in a manner analogous to diff to find which lines in filename1 and filename2 must be changed to bring the files into agree- ment. Its purpose is to allow processing of files too large for diff. If filename1 (filename2) is -, the standard input is read. bdiff ignores lines common to the beginning of both files, splits the remainder of each file into n-line segments, and invokes diff on cor- responding segments. If both optional arguments are specified, they must appear in the order indicated above. The output of bdiff is exactly that of diff, with line numbers adjusted to account for the segmenting of the files (that is, to make it look as if the files had been processed whole). Note: Because of the segmenting of the files, bdiff does not necessarily find a smallest sufficient set of file differences. OPTIONS
n The number of line segments. The value of n is 3500 by default. If the optional third argument is given and it is numeric, it is used as the value for n. This is useful in those cases in which 3500-line segments are too large for diff, causing it to fail. -s Specifies that no diagnostics are to be printed by bdiff (silent option). Note: However, this does not suppress possible diagnos- tic messages from diff, which bdiff calls. USAGE
See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of bdiff when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2**31 bytes). FILES
/tmp/bd????? ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWesu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |CSI |enabled | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
diff(1), attributes(5), largefile(5) DIAGNOSTICS
Use help for explanations. SunOS 5.10 14 Sep 1992 bdiff(1)