NAME

diff3 − 3-way differential file comparison

SYNOPSIS

diff3 [ −ex3 ] file1 file2 file3

DESCRIPTION

Diff3 compares three versions of a file, and publishes disagreeing ranges of text flagged with these codes:

==== all three files differ

====1 file1 is different

====2 file2 is different

====3 file3 is different

The type of change suffered in converting a given range of a given file to some other is indicated in one of these 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 may 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. 

Under the −e option, diff3 publishes a script for the editor ed that will incorporate into file1 all changes between file2 and file3, i.e. the changes that normally would be flagged ==== and ====3. Option −x (−3) produces a script to incorporate only changes flagged ==== (====3).  The following command will apply the resulting script to ‘file1’. 

(cat script; echo ´1,$p´) │ ed − file1

FILES

/tmp/d3????? 
/usr/lib/diff3

SEE ALSO

diff(1)

BUGS

Text lines that consist of a single ‘.’ will defeat −e. 

7th Edition