diff3(C)                        19 June 1992                        diff3(C)


 Name

    diff3 - compare three files

 Syntax

    diff3 [ -ex3 ] file1 file2 file3

 Description

    diff3 compares three versions of a file, and publishes disagreeing ranges
    of text flagged with these codes:

       ====              All three files differ

       ====1             file1 is different

       ====2             file2 is different

       ====3             file3 is different

    The type of change suffered in converting a given range of a given file
    to some other range is indicated in one of these ways:

       f : n1 a          Text is to be appended after line number n1 in file
                         f, where f = 1, 2, or 3.

       f : n1 , n2 c     Text is to be changed in the range line n1 to line
                         n2.  If n1 = n2, the range may be abbreviated to n1.

    The original contents of the range follow immediately after a c indica-
    tion.  When the contents of two files are identical, the contents of the
    lower-numbered file are suppressed.

    Options are:

    -e Publishes a script for the editor ed(C) that will incorporate into
       file1 all changes between file2 and file3, that is, the changes that
       normally would be flagged ==== and ====3.

    -x Produces a script to incorporate changes flagged with ====.

    -3 Produces a script to incorporate changes flagged with ====3.

    The following command applies a resulting editing script to file1:

       (cat script; echo '1,$p') | ed - file1


 Files

    /tmp/d3*
    /usr/lib/diff3prog

 See also

    diff(C), ed(C)

 Notes

    None of the options work properly for lines consisting of a single peri-
    od.  The input file size limit is 64K bytes.