Man1 - diff3.1

diff3 - compare three files line by line

diff3 [/OPTION/]… MYFILE OLDFILE YOURFILE

Compare three files line by line.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-A, –show-all

output all changes, bracketing conflicts

-e, –ed

output ed script incorporating changes from OLDFILE to YOURFILE into MYFILE

-E, –show-overlap

like -e, but bracket conflicts

-3, –easy-only

like -e, but incorporate only nonoverlapping changes

-x, –overlap-only

like -e, but incorporate only overlapping changes

-X

like -x, but bracket conflicts

-i

append ’w’ and ’q’ commands to ed scripts

-m, –merge

output actual merged file, according to -A if no other options are given

-a, –text

treat all files as text

–strip-trailing-cr

strip trailing carriage return on input

-T, –initial-tab

make tabs line up by prepending a tab

*–diff-program*=/PROGRAM/

use PROGRAM to compare files

-L, *–label*=/LABEL/

use LABEL instead of file name (can be repeated up to three times)

–help

display this help and exit

-v, –version

output version information and exit

The default output format is a somewhat human-readable representation of the changes.

The -e, -E, -x, -X (and corresponding long) options cause an ed script to be output instead of the default.

Finally, the -m (–merge) option causes diff3 to do the merge internally and output the actual merged file. For unusual input, this is more robust than using ed.

If a FILE is ’-’, read standard input. Exit status is 0 if successful, 1 if conflicts, 2 if trouble.

Written by Randy Smith.

Report bugs to: bug-diffutils@gnu.org
GNU diffutils home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/diffutils/
General help using GNU software: https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/

Copyright © 2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

cmp(1), diff(1), sdiff(1)

The full documentation for diff3 is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and diff3 programs are properly installed at your site, the command

info diff3

should give you access to the complete manual.