Name

gdiffmk - mark differences between groff/nroff/troff files

Synopsis

gdiffmk [-a add-mark] [-c change-mark] [-d delete-mark] [-x diff-command] [-D [-B] [-M mark1 mark2]] [--] file1 file2 [output-file]

gdiffmk --help

gdiffmk --version

Description

gdiffmk compares two roff(7) documents, file1 and file2, and writes another, derived from both, to the standard output stream (or output-file), adding margin character (mc) requests at places in the output where the input documents differ. gdiffmk does not interpret the source documents; it treats roff comments and nilpotent changes to formatting as meaningful. For example, it does not know that \h'3m', \h'(1 * 3m)', and \h'3m+0' all mean the same thing. If the file1 or file2 argument is “-”, gdiffmk reads the standard input stream for that input. If the output operand is present, gdiffmk writes output to a file of that name. If it is “-” or absent, gdiffmk writes output to the standard output stream. “-” cannot be both an input and output operand.

Options

--help displays a usage message and --version shows version information; both exit afterward.

-a add-mark: Annotate material absent from file1 but present in file2 with add-mark (default: “+”).
-B: Suppress br requests normally inserted by -D option. Use with caution; such requests are the only way to guarantee that deletions and small changes are marked.
-c change-mark: Annotate material differing between file1 and file2 with change-mark (default: “|”).
-d delete-mark: Annotate material present in file1 but absent from file2 with delete-mark (default: “*”).
-D: Mark changed and deleted material with surrounding delimiters.
-M mark1 mark2: Use mark1 (default: “[[”) and mark2 (default: “]]”) as delimiters when using the -D option.
-x diff-command: Use the diff-command program to perform the comparison of file1 and file2. diff-command (default: diff) must accept GNU diff(1)'s -D extension option.
--: Treat all subsequent arguments as file names, even if they begin with “-”.

Exit status

gdiffmk exits with status 0 if the input files are the same; 1 if they differ; 2 upon a usage error; 3 if the system's diff(1) or sh(1) commands do not support features gdiffmk requires; and 4 if the output argument is a duplicate of file1 or file2.

Caveats

The output is not necessarily compatible with all macro packages or preprocessors. A reliable workaround is to run gdiffmk on the output of the final preprocessor instead of the input source.

gdiffmk relies on the -D option of GNU diff to make a merged “#ifdef” output format. Busybox diff is known to not support it. Also see the -x diff-command option.

Authors

gdiffmk was written by Mike Bianchi, now retired. It is maintained by the groff developers.