1dwdiff(1) delimited word diff program dwdiff(1)
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6 dwdiff - a delimited word diff program
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9 dwdiff [OPTIONS] <OLD FILE> <NEW FILE>
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12 dwdiff is a front-end for the diff program that operates at the word
13 level instead of the line level. It is different from wdiff in that it
14 allows the user to specify what should be considered whitespace, and in
15 that it takes an optional list of characters that should be considered
16 delimiters. Delimiters are single characters that are treated as if
17 they are words, even when there is no whitespace separating them from
18 preceding words or delimiters. dwdiff is mostly command-line compatible
19 with wdiff. Only the --autopager, --terminal and --avoid-wraps options
20 are not supported.
21 The default output from dwdiff is the new text, with the deleted and
23 inserted parts annotated with markers. Command line options are avail‐
24 able to change both what is printed, and the markers.
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27 dwdiff accepts the following options (Note that all strings will first
28 be escape expanded. All standard \-escapes are supported, as well as \u
29 and \U Unicode escapes):
30 -h, --help
32 Display a short help message.
33 -v, --version
35 Print version and copyright information.
36 -d <delimiters>, --delimiters=<delimiters>
38 Specify a list of characters to be used as delimiters.
39 -P, --punctuation>
41 Use punctuation characters as delimiters. The exact set of punc‐
42 tuation characters depends on the current locale.
43 -W <whitespace>, --whitespace=<whitespace>
45 Specify a list of characters to be used as whitespace.
46 -1, --no-deleted
48 Suppress printing of words deleted from the first file.
49 -2, --no-inserted
51 Suppress printing of words inserted in the second file.
52 -3, --no-common
54 Suppress printing of words common to both files.
55 -L[<width>], --line-numbers[=<width>]
57 Show line numbers at the start of each line. The line numbers
58 displayed are the line number in the old file and the line num‐
59 ber in the new file respectively. The optional <width> argument
60 is the minimum number of positions per line number.
61 -C<num>, --context=<num>
63 Show <num> lines of context before and after each changes. A
64 line with only -- is printed between blocks of changes.
65 -s, --statistics
67 Print statistics when done. The numbers printed include the num‐
68 ber of words from in both files, the number of deleted words,
69 the number of inserted words, and the number of changed words.
70 The number of changed words is counted as the number of words
71 that are removed from the first file, and the number of words
72 that replace them from the second file. All of these numbers are
73 also expressed as a percentage of the total number of words in
74 the file the words came from.
75 -i, --ignore-case
77 Ignore differences in case when comparing words. This option is
78 only available if the diff program that is called provides it.
79 -I, --ignore-formatting
81 Ignore differences in formatting of characters. This option
82 switches to using the Unicode compatibility decomposition
83 instead of the canonical decomposition. The compatibility
84 decomposition discards formatting information. For example, the
85 ligature fi will be decomposed into two separate characters for
86 the purposes of comparison. However, also super- and subscript
87 will be regarded equal as well as different rotations of the
88 same character.
89 -D <option>, --diff-option=<option>
91 Add an option to the command line of the diff(1) command. This
92 option can be used to tell the diff command that it should
93 change its matching algorithm. WARNING: make sure that the
94 options passed do not change the output of the diff program, or
95 dwdiff will fail. The GNU and most BSD versions of diff accept
96 the -d or --minimal option to make diff find a minimal diff at
97 extra cost. See the diff manual page for more information.
98 -c[<spec>], --color[=<spec>]
100 Color mode. The optional <spec> can be used to customize the
101 colors. <spec> consists of [<delete>],[<insert>]. If either is
102 ommited it will be set to its default color (bright red or
103 bright green respectively). Both parts of the <spec> consist of
104 [<foreground>][:<background>]. To obtain a list of permissable
105 color names, use the word ``list'' as <spec>. Alternatively, you
106 can specify any escape sequence to set attributes as a color by
107 prepending e:.
108 The standard markers for the begin and end of deleted and
110 inserted text are suppressed, but any markers specified on the
111 command line will still be printed.
112 -l, --less-mode
114 As -p but also overstrike deleted whitespace.
115 -p, --printer
117 Use overstriking with an underscore and bold text to emphasize
118 changes. This is implemented by first printing the underscore or
119 a duplicate of the character to be printed, followed by a
120 backspace, followed by the character. On regular terminals you
121 won't see any effect. The less(1) command will however show
122 underlined and bold text.
123 The standard markers for the begin and end of deleted and
125 inserted text are suppressed, but any markers specified on the
126 command line will still be printed.
127 -m<num>, --match-context=<num>
129 Use <num> words of context before and after words for matching.
130 Words in the old text will then only match words in the new text
131 if words surrounding them are also equal. This improves the out‐
132 put for dwdiff for large changes with frequently occuring words.
133 However, using context requires more disk space and more pro‐
134 cessing time. The default value is 1. Set this option to 0 to
135 revert to the pre 1.5 behavior.
136 --aggregate-changes
138 Allow multiple close changes to be treated as one change, if
139 context words are used (see --match-context). This option
140 reduces the processing time as the changes reported by the diff
141 program are not post-processed to give more precise results.
142 -S[<marker>], --paragraph-separator[=<marker>]
144 Show insertion or deletion of blocks of lines with only white‐
145 space characters. A special marker is inserted into the output
146 to indicate these blocks. The default marker is <-->.
147 --wdiff-output
149 Create wdiff compatible output. The dwdiff program uses a dif‐
150 ferent output algorithm, which provides a more intuitive output.
151 -w <string>, --start-delete=<string>
153 Specify a string to mark begin of deleted text.
154 -x <string>, --stop-delete=<string>
156 Specify a string to mark end of deleted text.
157 -y <string>, --start-insert=<string>
159 Specify a string to mark begin of inserted text.
160 -z <string>, --stop-insert=<string>
162 Specify a string to mark end of inserted text.
163 A single dash (-) as a file can be used to denote standard input. Only
165 one file can be read from standard input. To stop dwdiff from inter‐
166 preting file names that start with a dash as options, one can specify a
167 double dash (--) after which dwdiff will interpret any following argu‐
168 ments as files to read.
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171 If you think you have found a bug, please check that you are using the
172 latest version of dwdiff [http://os.ghalkes.nl/dwdiff]. When reporting
173 bugs, please include a minimal example that demonstrates the problem.
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176 G.P. Halkes <dwdiff@ghalkes.nl>
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179 Copyright © 2006-2010 G.P. Halkes
180 dwdiff is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
181 For more details on the license, see the file COPYING in the documenta‐
182 tion directory. On Un*x systems this is usually
183 /usr/share/doc/dwdiff-1.7.
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186 dwfilter(1), wdiff(1), diff(1)
187Version 1.7 13-02-2010 dwdiff(1)