bdiff - big diff
bdiff filename1 filename2 [
n] [
-s]
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
agreement. 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
corresponding 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.
The options are:
- 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 diagnostic
messages from diff, which bdiff calls.
/tmp/bd?????
diff(1)
Use
help(1) for explanations.