BDIFF(1) (Directory and File Management Utilities) BDIFF(1)
NAME
bdiff - big diff
SYNOPSIS
bdiff file1 file2 [n] [-s]
DESCRIPTION
bdiff is used in a manner analogous to diff(1) to find which
lines in two files must be changed to bring the files into
agreement. Its purpose is to allow processing of files
which are too large for diff.
The parameters to bdiff are:
file1 (file2)
The name of a file to be used. If file1 (file2) is -,
the standard input is read.
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, that this does
not suppress possible diagnostic messages from diff(1),
which bdiff calls.
bdiff ignores lines common to the beginning of both files,
splits the remainder of each file into n-line segments, and
invokes diff upon 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 that because of the segmenting of the files,
bdiff does not necessarily find a smallest sufficient set of
Page 1 May 1989
BDIFF(1) (Directory and File Management Utilities) BDIFF(1)
file differences.
FILES
/tmp/bd?????
SEE ALSO
diff(1), help(1).
DIAGNOSTICS
Use help(1) for explanations.
Page 2 May 1989