colordiff(1) [debian man page]

COLORDIFF(1)															      COLORDIFF(1)

NAME

       colordiff - a tool to colorize diff output

SYNOPSIS

       colordiff [diff options] [colordiff options] {file1} {file2}

DESCRIPTION

       colordiff is a wrapper for diff and produces the same output as diff but with coloured syntax highlighting at the command line to improve
       readability. The output is similar to how a diff-generated patch might appear in Vim or Emacs with the appropriate syntax highlighting
       options enabled. The colour schemes can be read from a central configuration file or from a local user ~/.colordiffrc file.

       colordiff makes use of ANSI colours and as such will only work when ANSI colours can be used - typical examples are xterms and Eterms, as
       well as console sessions.

       colordiff has been tested on various flavours of Linux and under OpenBSD, but should be broadly portable to other systems.

USAGE

       Use colordiff wherever you would normally use diff, or pipe output to colordiff:

       For example:

	   $ colordiff file1 file2
	   $ diff -u file1 file2 | colordiff

       You can pipe the output to 'less', using the '-R' option (some systems or terminal types may get better results using '-r' instead), which
       keeps the colour escape sequences, otherwise displayed incorrectly or discarded by 'less':

	   $ diff -u file1 file2 | colordiff | less -R

       If you have wdiff installed, colordiff will correctly colourise the added and removed text, provided that the '-n' option is given to
       wdiff:

	   $ wdiff -n file1 file2 | colordiff

       You may find it useful to make diff automatically call colordiff. Add the following line to ~/.bashrc (or equivalent):

	   alias diff=colordiff

       Any options passed to colordiff are passed through to diff except for the colordiff-specific option 'difftype', e.g.

	   colordiff --difftype=debdiff file1 file2

       Valid values for 'difftype' are: diff, diffc, diffu, diffy, wdiff, debdiff; these correspond to plain diffs, context diffs, unified diffs,
       side-by-side diffs, wdiff output and debdiff output respectively. Use these overrides when colordiff is not able to determine the diff-type
       automatically.

       Alternatively, a construct such as 'cvs diff SOMETHING | colordiff' can be included in ~/.bashrc as follows:

	   function cvsdiff () { cvs diff $@ | colordiff; }

       Or, combining the idea above using 'less':

	   function cvsdiff () { cvs diff $@ | colordiff |less -R; }

       Note that the function name, cvsdiff, can be customized.

FILES

       /etc/colordiffrc
	   Central configuration file. User-specific settings can be enabled by copying this file to ~/.colordiffrc and making the appropriate
	   changes.

       colordiffrc-lightbg
	   Alternate configuration template for use with terminals having light backgrounds. Copy this to /etc/colordiffrc or ~/.colordiffrc and
	   customize.

BUGS

       Bug reports and suggestions/patches to <davee@sungate.co.uk> please.

AUTHOR

       colordiff is written and maintained by Dave Ewart <davee@sungate.co.uk>. This manual page and the source XML was written by Graham Wilson
       <graham@mknod.org> for Debian and is maintained by the author. Dave Ewart maintains the Debian package.

								    01/25/2009							      COLORDIFF(1)

Check Out this Related Man Page

DIFF(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   DIFF(1)

NAME

       diff - differential file comparator

SYNOPSIS

       diff [ -acefmnbwr ] file1 ... file2

DESCRIPTION

       Diff tells what lines must be changed in two files to bring them into agreement.  If one file is a directory, then a file in that directory
       with basename the same as that of the other file is used.  If both files are directories, similarly named files in the two directories  are
       compared  by the method of diff for text files and cmp(1) otherwise.  If more than two file names are given, then each argument is compared
       to the last argument as above.  The -r option causes diff to process similarly named subdirectories recursively.  When processing more than
       one  file,  diff  prefixes file differences with a single line listing the two differing files, in the form of a diff command line.  The -m
       flag causes this behavior even when processing single files.

       The normal output contains lines of these forms:

	    n1 a n3,n4
	    n1,n2 d n3
	    n1,n2 c n3,n4

       These lines resemble ed commands to convert file1 into file2.  The numbers after the letters pertain to file2.  In fact, by exchanging  `a'
       for `d' and reading backward one may ascertain equally how to convert file2 into file1.	As in ed, identical pairs where n1 = n2 or n3 = n4
       are abbreviated as a single number.

       Following each of these lines come all the lines that are affected in the first file flagged by `<', then all the lines that  are  affected
       in the second file flagged by `>'.

       The  -b	option	causes trailing blanks (spaces and tabs) to be ignored and other strings of blanks to compare equal.  The -w option causes
       all white-space to be removed from input lines before applying the difference algorithm.

       The -n option prefixes each range with file: and inserts a space around the a, c, and d verbs.  The -e option produces a script of a, c and
       d  commands  for  the editor ed, which will recreate file2 from file1.  The -f option produces a similar script, not useful with ed, in the
       opposite order. It may, however, be useful as input to a stream-oriented post-processor.

       The -c option includes three lines of context around each change, merging changes whose contexts overlap.  The -a flag displays the  entire
       file as context.

       Except in rare circumstances, diff finds a smallest sufficient set of file differences.

FILES

       /tmp/diff[12]

SOURCE

       /src/cmd/diff

SEE ALSO

       cmp(1), comm(1), ed(1)

DIAGNOSTICS

       Exit status is the empty string for no differences, for some, and for trouble.

BUGS

       Editing scripts produced under the -e or -f option are naive about creating lines consisting of a single `.'.

       When running diff on directories, the notion of what is a text file is open to debate.

																	   DIFF(1)

Linux and UNIX Man Pages

colordiff(1) [debian man page]

Check Out this Related Man Page