gendiff(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR | COLOPHON

GENDIFF(1)                 General Commands Manual                GENDIFF(1)

NAME top

       gendiff - utility to aid in error-free diff file generation

SYNOPSIS top

       gendiff <directory> <diff-extension>

DESCRIPTION top

       gendiff is a rather simple script which aids in generating a diff
       file from a single directory.  It takes a directory name and a "diff-
       extension" as its only arguments.  The diff extension should be a
       unique sequence of characters added to the end of all original,
       unmodified files.  The output of the program is a diff file which may
       be applied with the patch program to recreate the changes.

       The usual sequence of events for creating a diff is to create two
       identical directories, make changes in one directory, and then use
       the diff utility to create a list of differences between the two.
       Using gendiff eliminates the need for the extra, original and
       unmodified directory copy.  Instead, only the individual files that
       are modified need to be saved.

       Before editing a file, copy the file, appending the extension you
       have chosen to the filename.  I.e. if you were going to edit
       somefile.cpp and have chosen the extension "fix", copy it to
       somefile.cpp.fix before editing it.  Then edit the first copy
       (somefile.cpp).

       After editing all the files you need to edit in this fashion, enter
       the directory one level above where your source code resides, and
       then type

           $ gendiff somedirectory .fix > mydiff-fix.patch

       You should redirect the output to a file (as illustrated) unless you
       want to see the results on stdout.

SEE ALSO top

       diff(1), patch(1)

AUTHOR top

       Marc Ewing <marc@redhat.com>

COLOPHON top

       This page is part of the rpm (RPM Package Manager) project.
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4th Berkeley Distribution      Mon Jan 10 2000                    GENDIFF(1)

Pages that refer to this page: rpmbuild(8)