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Using diff&patch
Comparing
and merging files
diff,
diff3,
sdiff,
cmp,
and patch
1.3, diff
2.7
and patch
2.1
Copyright ©
1992-2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to
make and distribute verbatim copies of this documentation provided
the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.
Permission is granted to
copy and distribute modified versions of this documentation
under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the entire
resulting derived work
is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this
one.
Permission is granted to
copy and distribute translations of this documentation into
another language, under the above conditions for modified versions.
GNU diff
was written by Mike Haertel, David Hayes, Richard Stallman, Len Tower,
and
Paul Eggert. Wayne Davison designed and implemented the unified output
format.
The basic algorithm is described
in "An O(ND) Difference Algorithm and its Variations"
by Eugene W. Myers, in Algorithmica; Vol. 1, No. 2, 1986;
pp. 251–266; and in "A File
Comparison Program" by Webb Miller and Eugene W. Myers, in Software—Practice
and
Experience; Vol. 15, No. 11, 1985; pp. 1025–1040.
The algorithm was independently
discovered as described in "Algorithms for Approximate
String Matching" by E. Ukkonen, in Information and Control;
Vol. 64, 1985, pp. 100–118.
GNU diff3
was written by Randy Smith.
GNU sdiff
was written by Thomas Lord.
GNU cmp
was written by Torbjorn Granlund and David MacKenzie.
patch
was written mainly by Larry Wall; the GNU enhancements were written mainly
by Wayne Davison and David MacKenzie.
Parts of this manual are
adapted from a manual page written by Larry Wall, with his
permission.
Copyright © 1994-2000
Cygnus Solutions. All rights reserved.
GNUPro™,
the GNUPro™
logo are trademarks of Cygnus Solutions.
All other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.
The following documentation
discusses comparing and merging files.
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