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DIFF3

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: May 2017
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NAME

diff3 - compare three files line by line

SYNOPSIS

diff3 [OPTION]... MYFILE OLDFILE YOURFILE

DESCRIPTION

Compare three files line by line.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-A, --show-all: output all changes, bracketing conflicts
-e, --ed: output ed script incorporating changes from OLDFILE to YOURFILE into MYFILE
-E, --show-overlap: like -e, but bracket conflicts
-3, --easy-only: like -e, but incorporate only nonoverlapping changes
-x, --overlap-only: like -e, but incorporate only overlapping changes
-X: like -x, but bracket conflicts
-i: append 'w' and 'q' commands to ed scripts
-m, --merge: output actual merged file, according to -A if no other options are given
-a, --text: treat all files as text
--strip-trailing-cr: strip trailing carriage return on input
-T, --initial-tab: make tabs line up by prepending a tab
--diff-program=PROGRAM: use PROGRAM to compare files
-L, --label=LABEL: use LABEL instead of file name (can be repeated up to three times)
--help: display this help and exit
-v, --version: output version information and exit

The default output format is a somewhat human-readable representation of the changes.

The -e, -E, -x, -X (and corresponding long) options cause an ed script to be output instead of the default.

Finally, the -m (--merge) option causes diff3 to do the merge internally and output the actual merged file. For unusual input, this is more robust than using ed.

If a FILE is '-', read standard input. Exit status is 0 if successful, 1 if conflicts, 2 if trouble.

AUTHOR

Written by Randy Smith.

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to: bug-diffutils@gnu.org
GNU diffutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/diffutils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.