EDITOR, VISUAL
Specifies an editor to use with the -o option. If both EDITOR and VISUAL are set, VISUAL takes precedence. If neither EDITOR nor VISUAL are set, the default is vi(1).
sdiff1
Side-by-side diff
Usage
sdiff [-abdilstW]
[-I
regexp]
[-o
outfile]
[-w
width]
file1
file2
Overview
sdiff displays two files side by side, with any differences between the two highlighted as follows: new lines are marked with ‘>’; deleted lines are marked with ‘<’; and changed lines are marked with ‘|’.
sdiff can also be used to interactively merge two files, prompting at each set of differences. See the -o option for an explanation.
The options are:
-
-l -
Only print the left column for identical lines.
-
-o outfile -
Interactively merge file1 and file2 into outfile. In this mode, the user is prompted for each set of differences. See EDITOR and VISUAL, below, for details of which editor, if any, is invoked.
The commands are as follows:
l|1-
Choose left set of diffs.
r|2-
Choose right set of diffs.
bl|b1-
Choose both, left set of diffs first.
br|b2-
Choose both, right set of diffs first.
s-
Silent mode – identical lines are not printed.
v-
Verbose mode – identical lines are printed.
e-
Start editing an empty file, which will be merged into outfile upon exiting the editor.
el-
Start editing file with left set of diffs.
er-
Start editing file with right set of diffs.
eb-
Start editing file with both sets of diffs.
q-
Quit
sdiff.
-
-s -
Skip identical lines.
-
-w width -
Print a maximum of width characters on each line. The default is 130 characters.
Options passed to diff(1) are:
-
-a -
Treat file1 and file2 as text files.
-
-b -
Ignore trailing blank spaces.
-
-d -
Minimize diff size.
-
-I regexp -
Ignore line changes matching regexp. All lines in the change must match regexp for the change to be ignored.
-
-i -
Do a case-insensitive comparison.
-
-t -
Expand tabs to spaces.
-
-W -
Ignore all spaces (the
-wflag is passed to diff(1)).
Environment
-
-
-
TMPDIR -
Specifies a directory for temporary files to be created. The default is /tmp.
Exit status
The sdiff utility exits with one of the following values:
-
0 -
No differences were found.
-
1 -
Differences were found.
-
1 -
An error occurred.
Caveats
Although undocumented, sdiff supports most long options supported by GNU sdiff, though some require GNU diff.
Tabs are treated as anywhere from one to eight characters wide, depending on the current column. Terminals that treat tabs as eight characters wide will look best.
Releases
56 releases since OpenBSD 2.1; the text changed 10 times.
--expand-tabs until OpenBSD 3.3;
--ignore-all-space until OpenBSD 3.3;
--ignore-blank-lines until OpenBSD 3.3;
--ignore-case until OpenBSD 3.3;
--ignore-matching-lines until OpenBSD 3.3;
--ignore-space-change until OpenBSD 3.3;
--left-column until OpenBSD 3.3;
--minimal until OpenBSD 3.3;
--output until OpenBSD 3.3;
--speed-large-files until OpenBSD 3.3;
--suppress-common-lines until OpenBSD 3.3;
--text until OpenBSD 3.3;
--version until OpenBSD 3.3;
--width until OpenBSD 3.3;
-B until OpenBSD 3.3;
-H until OpenBSD 3.3;
-v until OpenBSD 3.3.