xdelta3 (1)

xdelta3 [command] [options] [input [output]]

xdelta3 is a binary diff tool that uses the VCDIFF (RFC 3284) format and compression.

config

prints xdelta3 configuration

decode

decompress the input, also set by -d

encode

compress the input, also set by -e (default)

test

run the builtin tests

printdelta

print information about the entire delta

printhdr

print information about the first window

printhdrs

print information about all windows

recode

encode with new application/secondary settings

standard options:

-0 .. -9

compression level

-c

use stdout

-d

decompress

-e

compress

-f

force overwrite

-h

show help

-q

be quiet

-v

be verbose (max 2)

-V

show version

memory options:

-B

bytes source window size

-W

bytes input window size

-P

size compression duplicates window

-I

size instruction buffer size (0 = unlimited)

compression options:

-s

source source file to copy from (if any)

-S [djw|fgk|lzma|none]

enable/disable secondary compression

-N

disable small string-matching compression

-D

disable external decompression (encode/decode)

-R

disable external recompression (decode)

-n

disable checksum (encode/decode)

-C

soft config (encode, undocumented)

-A [apphead]

disable/provide application header (encode)

-J

disable output (check/compute only)

-T

use alternate code table (test)

The XDELTA environment variable may contain extra args:

XDELTA="-s source-x.y.tar.gz" \

tar --use-compress-program=xdelta3 -cf \

target-x.z.tar.gz.vcdiff target-x.y/

Compress the differences between SOURCE and TARGET, yielding OUT, using "djw" secondary compression:

xdelta3 -S djw -s SOURCE TARGET OUT

Do the same, using standard input and output:

xdelta3 -S djw -s SOURCE < TARGET > OUT

To decompress OUT, using SOURCE, yielding TARGET:

xdelta3 -d -s SOURCE OUT TARGET

xdelta3 was written by Josh MacDonald <[email protected]>.

This manual page was written by Leo 'costela' Antunes <[email protected]> for the Debian project (but may be used by others).