1 GNU diffutils NEWS -*- outline -*-
3 * Noteworthy changes in release 3.2 (2011-09-02) [stable]
7 --ignore-file-name-case now applies at the top level too.
8 For example, "diff dir inIt" might compare "dir/Init" to "inIt".
12 diff and sdiff have a new option --ignore-trailing-space (-Z).
16 The texinfo documentation no longer specifies "front-cover" or "back-cover"
17 texts, so that it may now be included in Debian's "main" section.
20 * Noteworthy changes in release 3.1 (2011-08-10) [stable]
24 diff no longer reports spurious differences merely because two entries
25 in the same directory have names that compare equal in the current
26 locale, or compare equal because --ignore-file-name-case was given.
28 * Noteworthy changes in release 3.0 (2010-05-03) [stable]
32 diff once again prints the required "\ No newline at end of file" line
33 when at least one input lacks a newline-at-EOF and the final hunk plus
34 context-length aligns exactly with the end of the newline-lacking file.
35 [bug introduced between 2.8.7 and 2.9]
37 ** Changes in behavior
39 In context-style diffs, diff prints a portion of a preceding "function"
40 line for each hunk, with --show-function-line=RE (-F) or
41 --show-c-function (-p). Now, it trims leading blanks from such lines
42 before extracting a prefix. This is useful especially when a function
43 line is so far indented that the name itself would be truncated or not
44 included in the limited-width substring that diff appends.
46 diff once again reports a difference with the diagnostic
47 "Binary files A and B differ" when at least one of the files
48 appears to be binary. From 2.8.4 through diffutils-2.9, it printed
49 "Files A and B differ".
52 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.9 (2010-02-11) [stable]
56 New diff option --suppress-blank-empty.
58 Bring back support for `diff -NUM', where NUM is a number,
59 even when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001. This change reverts to
60 the behavior of GNU diff 2.7 and earlier. This is a change only
61 when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
62 conforming to older POSIX versions.
64 This change is in response to decisions taken in the January 2005
65 Austin Group standardization meeting. For more details, please see
66 "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
67 Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
69 sdiff now understands '1' and '2' as synonyms for 'l' and 'r'.
71 ** Changes in behavior
73 sdiff and diff3 now invoke diff, not $(bindir)/diff
77 New discussion and bug-reporting address: bug-diffutils@gnu.org
79 updated gnulib support
82 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.8.7 (2004-04-13) [stable]
84 Version 2.8.7 contains no user-visible changes.
86 User-visible changes in version 2.8.6:
88 * New diff3 option --strip-trailing-cr.
90 * With -N and -P, inaccessible empty regular files (the kind of files
91 that 'patch' creates to indicate nonexistent backups) are now
92 treated as nonexistent when they are in the 'backup' file position.
94 * If multiple SKIP values are given to cmp, e.g., `cmp -i 10 -i 20',
95 cmp now uses the maximal value instead of the last one.
97 * diff now omits the ".000000000" on hosts that do not support
98 fractional time stamps.
100 Version 2.8.5 was not publicly released.
102 User-visible changes in version 2.8.4:
104 * Diff now simply prints "Files A and B differ" instead of "Binary
105 files A and B differ". The message is output if either A or B
106 appears to be a binary file, and the old wording was misleading
107 because it implied that both files are binary, which is not
108 necessarily the case.
110 User-visible changes in version 2.8.3:
114 User-visible changes in version 2.8.2:
116 * New diff and sdiff option:
118 * If --ignore-space-change or --ignore-all-space is also specified,
119 --ignore-blank-lines now considers lines to be empty if they contain
121 * More platforms now handle multibyte characters correctly when
122 excluding files by name (diff -x and -X).
123 * New locales: hu, pt_BR.
125 User-visible changes in version 2.8.1:
127 * Documentation fixes.
129 User-visible changes in version 2.8:
131 * cmp and diff now conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001 (IEEE Std 1003.1-2001)
132 if the underlying system conforms to POSIX and if the _POSIX2_VERSION
133 environment variable is set to 200112. Conformance removes support
134 for `diff -NUM', where NUM is a number. Use -C NUM or -U NUM instead.
135 * cmp now supports trailing operands SKIP1 and SKIP2, like BSD cmp.
136 * cmp -i or --ignore-initial now accepts SKIP1:SKIP2 option value.
137 * New cmp option: -n or --bytes.
138 * cmp's old -c or --print-chars option has been renamed;
139 use -b or --print-bytes instead.
140 * cmp now outputs "byte" rather than "char" outside the POSIX locale.
141 * cmp -l's index column width now adjusts to fit larger (or smaller) files.
142 * cmp -l -s and cmp -s -l are not allowed. Use cmp -s or cmp -l instead.
143 * diff uses ISO 8601 style time stamps for output times (e.g. "2001-11-23
144 16:44:36.875702460 -0800") unless in the C or POSIX locale and the
145 -c style is specified.
146 * diff's -I and -F options use the regexp syntax of grep, not of Emacs.
147 * diff now accepts multiple context arguments, and uses their maximum value.
148 * New diff and sdiff options:
149 -E --ignore-tab-expansion
152 --from-file=FILE, --to-file=FILE
153 --ignore-file-name-case
154 --no-ignore-file-name-case
155 * New diff3 and sdiff option:
156 --diff-program=PROGRAM
157 * The following diff options are still accepted, but are no longer documented.
158 They may be withdrawn in future releases.
159 -h (omit; it has no effect)
160 -H (use --speed-large-files instead)
161 -L (use --label instead)
162 -P (use --unidirectional-new-file instead)
163 --inhibit-hunk-merge (omit; it has no effect)
164 * Recursive diffs now sort file names according to the LC_COLLATE locale
165 category if possible, instead of using native byte comparison.
166 * Recursive diffs now detect and report directory loops.
167 * Diff printf specs can now use the "0" and "'" flags.
168 * The new sdiff interactive command `ed' precedes each version with a header.
169 * On 64-bit hosts, files larger than 2 GB can be compared.
170 * Some internationalization support has been added, but multibyte locales
171 are still not completely supported yet.
172 * Some diagnostics have been reworded slightly for consistency.
173 Also, `diff -D FOO' now outputs `/* ! FOO */' instead of `/* not FOO */'.
174 * The `patch' part of the manual now describes `patch' version 2.5.4.
175 * Man pages are now distributed and installed.
176 * There is support for DJGPP; see the 'ms' subdirectory and the files
177 m4/dos.m4 and */setmode.*.
180 User-visible changes in version 2.7:
182 * New diff option: --binary (useful only on non-POSIX hosts)
183 * diff -b and -w now ignore line incompleteness; -B no longer does this.
184 * cmp -c now uses locale to decide which output characters to quote.
185 * Help and version messages are reorganized.
188 User-visible changes in version 2.6:
190 * New cmp, diff, diff3, sdiff option: --help
191 * A new heuristic for diff greatly reduces the time needed to compare
192 large input files that contain many differences.
193 * Partly as a result, GNU diff's output is not exactly the same as before.
194 Usually it is a bit smaller, but sometimes it is a bit larger.
197 User-visible changes in version 2.5:
199 * New cmp option: -v --version
202 User-visible changes in version 2.4:
204 * New cmp option: --ignore-initial=BYTES
205 * New diff3 option: -T --initial-tab
206 * New diff option: --line-format=FORMAT
207 * New diff group format specifications:
208 <PRINTF_SPEC>[eflmnEFLMN]
209 A printf spec followed by one of the following letters
210 causes the integer corresponding to that letter to be
211 printed according to the printf specification.
212 E.g. `%5df' prints the number of the first line in the
213 group in the old file using the "%5d" format.
214 e: line number just before the group in old file; equals f - 1
215 f: first line number in group in the old file
216 l: last line number in group in the old file
217 m: line number just after the group in old file; equals l + 1
218 n: number of lines in group in the old file; equals l - f + 1
219 E, F, L, M, N: likewise, for lines in the new file
221 If A equals B then T else E. A and B are each either a decimal
222 constant or a single letter interpreted as above. T and E are
223 arbitrary format strings. This format spec is equivalent to T if
224 A's value equals B's; otherwise it is equivalent to E. For
225 example, `%(N=0?no:%dN) line%(N=1?:s)' is equivalent to `no lines'
226 if N (the number of lines in the group in the new file) is 0,
227 to `1 line' if N is 1, and to `%dN lines' otherwise.
229 where C is a single character, stands for the character C. C may not
230 be a backslash or an apostrophe. E.g. %c':' stands for a colon.
232 where O is a string of 1, 2, or 3 octal digits, stands for the
233 character with octal code O. E.g. %c'\0' stands for a null character.
234 * New diff line format specifications:
236 The line number, printed with <PRINTF_SPEC>.
237 E.g. `%5dn' prints the line number with a "%5d" format.
240 The character C, or with octal code O, as above.
241 * Supported <PRINTF_SPEC>s have the same meaning as with printf, but must
242 match the extended regular expression %-*[0-9]*(\.[0-9]*)?[doxX].
243 * The format spec %0 introduced in version 2.1 has been removed, since it
244 is incompatible with printf specs like %02d. To represent a null char,
246 * cmp and diff now conform to POSIX 1003.2-1992 (ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993)
247 if the underlying system conforms to POSIX:
248 - Some messages' wordings are changed in minor ways.
249 - ``White space'' is now whatever C's `isspace' says it is.
250 - When comparing directories, if `diff' finds a file that is not a regular
251 file or a directory, it reports the file's type instead of diffing it.
252 (As usual, it follows symbolic links first.)
253 - When signaled, sdiff exits with the signal's status, not with status 2.
254 * Now portable to hosts where int, long, pointer, etc. are not all the same
256 * `cmp - -' now works like `diff - -'.
259 User-visible changes in version 2.3:
261 * New diff option: --horizon-lines=lines
264 User-visible changes in version 2.1:
267 --{old,new,unchanged}-line-format='format'
268 --{old,new,unchanged,changed}-group-format='format'
272 * diff3 -m now defaults to -A, not -E.
273 * diff3 now takes up to three -L or --label options, not just two.
274 If just two options are given, they refer to the first two input files,
275 not the first and third input files.
276 * sdiff and diff -y handle incomplete lines.
279 User-visible changes in version 2.0:
281 * Add sdiff and cmp programs.
282 * Add Texinfo documentation.
283 * Add configure script.
284 * Improve diff performance.
288 -P --unidirectional-new-file
293 --suppress-common-lines
294 * diff options renamed:
295 --label renamed from --file-label
296 --forward-ed renamed from --reversed-ed
297 --paginate renamed from --print
298 --entire-new-file renamed from --entire-new-files
299 --new-file renamed from --new-files
303 * Add long-named equivalents for other diff3 options.
304 * diff options -F (--show-function-line) and -I (--ignore-matching-lines)
305 can now be given more than once.
309 Copyright (C) 1993-1994, 1998, 2001-2002, 2004, 2006, 2009-2011 Free Software
312 This file is part of GNU Diffutils.
314 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
315 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
316 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
317 (at your option) any later version.
319 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
320 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
321 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
322 GNU General Public License for more details.
324 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
325 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.