IDIFF(Local)

NAME
idiff - interactive diff of two files

SYNOPSIS
idiff file1 file2

DESCRIPTION
Idiff runs diff(1) on the specified files and then presents each chunk of diff output and offers the user the option of choosing the ``from'' part or the ``to'' part, or editing the parts. Idiff produces the selected pieces in the proper order in a file called idiff.out.

After each chunk is presented, idiff will prompt the user (with a `? ') for a command. The valid commands are:

<   Take the ``from'' portion of the displayed chunk. This is the portion which was extracted from the first file specified.

>   Take the ``to'' portion of the displayed chunk. This corresponds to that extracted from the second file specified.

e   Invoke an editor on the chunk. The contents of shell variable EDITOR select the editor to be used. The default is /bin/ed. Whatever is written out from ed will be placed into the final output.

q<  Take all the rest of the '<' choices automatically. Think of this as ``quit from''.

q>  Take all the rest of the '>' choices automatically. Think of this as ``quit to''.

!   Pass the command buffer to the shell for processing.

All code that diff considers identical in both input files is automatically put into the output file.

FILES
idiff.out - merged output

BUGS
It is not possible to pass any options to diff through idiff. Nor can you use `-' as a filename argument.

HISTORY
Idiff appears in the book ``The UNIX Programming Environment'' by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike.

SEE ALSO
sdiff (1) (side-by-side diff), a GNU tool that is included in OpenBSD. mgdiff (1), an X11 tool for comparing two files visually.