SDIFF

sdiff ? find differences between two files and merge interactively

sdiff -o outfile [options] from-file to-file

The sdiff command merges two files and interactively outputs the results to outfile.

If from-file is a directory and to-file is not, sdiff compares the file in from-file whose file name is that of to-file, and vice versa. from-file and to-file may not both be directories.

sdiff options begin with ?, so normally from-file and to-file may not begin with ?. However, ?? as an argument by itself treats the remaining arguments as file names even if they begin with ?. You may not use ? as an input file.

sdiff without ?o (or ??output) produces a side-by-side difference. This usage is obsolete; use diff ??side?by?side instead.

Options

Below is a summary of all of the options that GNU sdiff accepts. Each option has two equivalent names, one of which is a single letter preceded by ?, and the other of which is a long name preceded by ??. Multiple single letter options (unless they take an argument) can be combined into a single command line argument. Long named options can be abbreviated to any unique prefix of their name.

?a

Treat all files as text and compare them line-by-line, even if they do not appear to be text.

?b

Ignore changes in amount of white space.

?B

Ignore changes that just insert or delete blank lines.

?d

Change the algorithm to perhaps find a smaller set of changes. This makes sdiff slower (sometimes much slower).

?H

Use heuristics to speed handling of large files that have numerous scattered small changes.

??expand?tabs

Expand tabs to spaces in the output, to preserve the alignment of tabs in the input files.

?i

Ignore changes in case; consider upper- and lower-case to be the same.

?I regexp

Ignore changes that just insert or delete lines that match regexp.

??ignore?all?space

Ignore white space when comparing lines.

??ignore?blank?lines

Ignore changes that just insert or delete blank lines.

??ignore?case

Ignore changes in case; consider upper- and lower-case to be the same.

??ignore?matching?lines=regexp

Ignore changes that just insert or delete lines that match regexp.

??ignore?space?change

Ignore changes in amount of white space.

?l

??left?column

Print only the left column of two common lines.

??minimal

Change the algorithm to perhaps find a smaller set of changes. This makes sdiff slower (sometimes much slower).

?o file

??output=file

Put merged output into file. This option is required for merging.

?s

??suppress?common?lines

Do not print common lines.

??speed?large?files

Use heuristics to speed handling of large files that have numerous scattered small changes.

?t

Expand tabs to spaces in the output, to preserve the alignment of tabs in the input files.

??text

Treat all files as text and compare them line-by-line, even if they do not appear to be text.

?v

??version

Output the version number of sdiff.

?w columns

??width=columns

Use an output width of columns. Note that for historical reasons, this option is ?W in diff, ?w in sdiff.

?W

Ignore horizontal white space when comparing lines. Note that for historical reasons, this option is ?w in diff, ?W in sdiff.

cmp(1), comm(1), diff(1), diff3(1).

An exit status of 0 means no differences were found, 1 means some differences were found, and 2 means trouble.