DIFF3(1)			  GNU Tools			     DIFF3(1)



NAME
       diff3 - find differences between three files

SYNOPSIS
       diff3 [options] mine older yours

DESCRIPTION
       The  diff3  command  compares  three files and outputs descriptions of
       their differences.

       The files to compare are mine, older, and yours.	 At most one of these
       three  file  names  may	be  -, which tells diff3 to read the standard
       input for that file.

   Options
       Below is a summary of all of the options that GNU diff3 accepts.	 Mul-
       tiple single letter options (unless they take an argument) can be com-
       bined into a single command line argument.

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

       -A     Incorporate  all	changes	 from  older to yours into mine, sur-
	      rounding all conflicts with bracket lines.

       -B     Old behavior of -A.  Shows non-conflicts.

       -e     Generate an ed script that incorporates all  the	changes	 from
	      older to yours into mine.

       -E     Like  -e,	 except bracket lines from overlapping changes' first
	      and third files.	With -e, an  overlapping  change  looks	 like
	      this:

	      <<<<<<< mine
	      lines from mine
	      =======
	      lines from yours
	      >>>>>>> yours

       --ed   Generate	an  ed	script that incorporates all the changes from
	      older to yours into mine.

       --easy-only
	      Like -e, except output only the nonoverlapping changes.

       -i     Generate w and q commands at the end of the ed script for	 Sys-
	      tem  V compatibility.  This option must be combined with one of
	      the -AeExX3 options, and may not be combined with -m.

       --initial-tab
	      Output a tab rather than two spaces before the text of  a	 line
	      in  normal  format.   This  causes the alignment of tabs in the
	      line to look normal.

       -L label
       --label=label
	      Use the label label for the brackets output by the -A,  -E  and
	      -X  options.   This  option may be given up to three times, one
	      for each input file.  The default labels are the names  of  the
	      input  files.   Thus  diff3  -L  X -L Y -L Z -m A B C acts like
	      diff3 -m A B C , except that the output looks like it came from
	      files named X, Y and Z rather than from files named A, B and C.

       -m
       --merge
	      Apply the edit script to the first file and send the result  to
	      standard	output.	  Unlike  piping the output from diff3 to ed,
	      this works even for binary files and incomplete lines.   -A  is
	      assumed if no edit script option is specified.

       --overlap-only
	      Like -e, except output only the overlapping changes.

       --show-all
	      Incorporate all unmerged changes from older to yours into mine,
	      surrounding all overlapping changes with bracket lines.

       --show-overlap
	      Like -e, except bracket lines from overlapping  changes'	first
	      and third files.

       -T     Output  a	 tab rather than two spaces before the text of a line
	      in normal format.	 This causes the alignment  of	tabs  in  the
	      line to look normal.

       --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 diff3.

       -x     Like -e, except output only the overlapping changes.

       -X     Like -E, except output only the overlapping changes.  In	other
	      words, like -x, except bracket changes as in -E.

       -3     Like -e, except output only the nonoverlapping changes.

SEE ALSO
       cmp(1), comm(1), diff(1), ed(1), patch(1), sdiff(1).

DIAGNOSTICS
       An exit status of 0 means diff3 was successful, 1 means some conflicts
       were found, and 2 means trouble.



GNU Tools			  22sep1993			     DIFF3(1)

UNIX/Linux commands referenced on this page:

1. find
2. compare
3. file
4. which
5. as
6. ed
7. script
8. at
9. look