opensolaris man page for diff3

diff3(1)							   User Commands							  diff3(1)

NAME
       diff3 - 3-way differential file comparison

SYNOPSIS
       diff3 [-exEX3] filename1 filename2 filename3

DESCRIPTION
       diff3 compares three versions of a file. It publishes disagreeing ranges of text flagged with the following codes:

       ====	all three files differ

       ====1	filename1is different

       ====2	filename2is different

       ====3	filename3is different

       The type of change suffered in converting a given range of a given file to some other is indicated in one of the following 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 can 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.

       The following command applies the resulting script to filename1.

	 (cat script; echo a'1,$pa') | ed - filename1

OPTIONS
       The following options are supported:

       -e     Produce a script for the ed(1) editor that incorporates into filename1 all changes between filename2 and	filename3  (that  is,  the
	      changes that normally would be flagged ==== and ====3).

	      Text lines that consist of a single dot (. defeat the -e option.

       -E     Produce a script that incorporates all changes between filename2 and filename3, but treat overlapping changes (that is, changes that
	      would be flagged with ==== in the normal listing) differently. The overlapping lines from  both  files  are  inserted  by  the  edit
	      script, bracketed by <<<<<< and >>>>>> lines.

       -x     Produce a script to incorporate only changes flagged ====.

       -X     Produce a script that incorporates only changes flagged ====, but treat these changes in the manner of the -E option.

       -3     Produce a script to incorporate only changes flagged ====3.

USAGE
       See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of diff3 when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).

FILES
       /tmp/d3*

       /usr/lib/diff3prog

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values are returned:

       0     Successful completion.

       1     An error occurred. A difference was found or there was a fatal error.

       >1    A fatal error occurred.

       Return values do not work the same as diff(1) or other vendor's versions of diff3.

ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWesc			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |CSI			     |Enabled			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO
       diff(1), attributes(5), largefile(5)

NOTES
       Files longer than 64 Kbytes do not work.

SunOS 5.11							    7 Nov 2005								  diff3(1)