xref: /freebsd/contrib/diff/NEWS (revision 0fca6ea1d4eea4c934cfff25ac9ee8ad6fe95583)
1Version 2.8.7 contains no user-visible changes.
2
3User-visible changes in version 2.8.6:
4
5* New diff3 option --strip-trailing-cr.
6
7* With -N and -P, inaccessible empty regular files (the kind of files
8  that 'patch' creates to indicate nonexistent backups) are now
9  treated as nonexistent when they are in the 'backup' file position.
10
11* If multiple SKIP values are given to cmp, e.g., `cmp -i 10 -i 20',
12  cmp now uses the maximal value instead of the last one.
13
14* diff now omits the ".000000000" on hosts that do not support
15  fractional time stamps.
16
17Version 2.8.5 was not publicly released.
18
19User-visible changes in version 2.8.4:
20
21* Diff now simply prints "Files A and B differ" instead of "Binary
22  files A and B differ".  The message is output if either A or B
23  appears to be a binary file, and the old wording was misleading
24  because it implied that both files are binary, which is not
25  necessarily the case.
26
27User-visible changes in version 2.8.3:
28
29* New locale: en_US.
30
31User-visible changes in version 2.8.2:
32
33* New diff and sdiff option:
34  --tabsize=COLUMNS
35* If --ignore-space-change or --ignore-all-space is also specified,
36  --ignore-blank-lines now considers lines to be empty if they contain
37  only white space.
38* More platforms now handle multibyte characters correctly when
39  excluding files by name (diff -x and -X).
40* New locales: hu, pt_BR.
41
42User-visible changes in version 2.8.1:
43
44* Documentation fixes.
45
46User-visible changes in version 2.8:
47
48* cmp and diff now conform to POSIX 1003.1-2001 (IEEE Std 1003.1-2001)
49  if the underlying system conforms to POSIX and if the _POSIX2_VERSION
50  environment variable is set to 200112.  Conformance removes support
51  for `diff -NUM', where NUM is a number.  Use -C NUM or -U NUM instead.
52* cmp now supports trailing operands SKIP1 and SKIP2, like BSD cmp.
53* cmp -i or --ignore-initial now accepts SKIP1:SKIP2 option value.
54* New cmp option: -n or --bytes.
55* cmp's old -c or --print-chars option has been renamed;
56  use -b or --print-bytes instead.
57* cmp now outputs "byte" rather than "char" outside the POSIX locale.
58* cmp -l's index column width now adjusts to fit larger (or smaller) files.
59* cmp -l -s and cmp -s -l are not allowed.  Use cmp -s or cmp -l instead.
60* diff uses ISO 8601 style time stamps for output times (e.g. "2001-11-23
61  16:44:36.875702460 -0800") unless in the C or POSIX locale and the
62  -c style is specified.
63* diff's -I and -F options use the regexp syntax of grep, not of Emacs.
64* diff now accepts multiple context arguments, and uses their maximum value.
65* New diff and sdiff options:
66  -E  --ignore-tab-expansion
67  --strip-trailing-cr
68* New diff options:
69  --from-file=FILE, --to-file=FILE
70  --ignore-file-name-case
71  --no-ignore-file-name-case
72* New diff3 and sdiff option:
73  --diff-program=PROGRAM
74* The following diff options are still accepted, but are no longer documented.
75  They may be withdrawn in future releases.
76  -h (omit; it has no effect)
77  -H (use --speed-large-files instead)
78  -L (use --label instead)
79  -P (use --unidirectional-new-file instead)
80  --inhibit-hunk-merge (omit; it has no effect)
81* Recursive diffs now sort file names according to the LC_COLLATE locale
82  category if possible, instead of using native byte comparison.
83* Recursive diffs now detect and report directory loops.
84* Diff printf specs can now use the "0" and "'" flags.
85* The new sdiff interactive command `ed' precedes each version with a header.
86* On 64-bit hosts, files larger than 2 GB can be compared.
87* Some internationalization support has been added, but multibyte locales
88  are still not completely supported yet.
89* Some diagnostics have been reworded slightly for consistency.
90  Also, `diff -D FOO' now outputs `/* ! FOO */' instead of `/* not FOO */'.
91* The `patch' part of the manual now describes `patch' version 2.5.4.
92* Man pages are now distributed and installed.
93* There is support for DJGPP; see the 'ms' subdirectory and the files
94  m4/dos.m4 and */setmode.*.
95
96
97User-visible changes in version 2.7:
98
99* New diff option: --binary (useful only on non-POSIX hosts)
100* diff -b and -w now ignore line incompleteness; -B no longer does this.
101* cmp -c now uses locale to decide which output characters to quote.
102* Help and version messages are reorganized.
103
104
105User-visible changes in version 2.6:
106
107* New cmp, diff, diff3, sdiff option: --help
108* A new heuristic for diff greatly reduces the time needed to compare
109  large input files that contain many differences.
110* Partly as a result, GNU diff's output is not exactly the same as before.
111  Usually it is a bit smaller, but sometimes it is a bit larger.
112
113
114User-visible changes in version 2.5:
115
116* New cmp option: -v --version
117
118
119User-visible changes in version 2.4:
120
121* New cmp option: --ignore-initial=BYTES
122* New diff3 option: -T --initial-tab
123* New diff option: --line-format=FORMAT
124* New diff group format specifications:
125  <PRINTF_SPEC>[eflmnEFLMN]
126      A printf spec followed by one of the following letters
127      causes the integer corresponding to that letter to be
128      printed according to the printf specification.
129      E.g. `%5df' prints the number of the first line in the
130      group in the old file using the "%5d" format.
131	e: line number just before the group in old file; equals f - 1
132	f: first line number in group in the old file
133	l: last line number in group in the old file
134	m: line number just after the group in old file; equals l + 1
135	n: number of lines in group in the old file; equals l - f + 1
136	E, F, L, M, N: likewise, for lines in the new file
137  %(A=B?T:E)
138      If A equals B then T else E.  A and B are each either a decimal
139      constant or a single letter interpreted as above.  T and E are
140      arbitrary format strings.  This format spec is equivalent to T if
141      A's value equals B's; otherwise it is equivalent to E.  For
142      example, `%(N=0?no:%dN) line%(N=1?:s)' is equivalent to `no lines'
143      if N (the number of lines in the group in the the new file) is 0,
144      to `1 line' if N is 1, and to `%dN lines' otherwise.
145  %c'C'
146      where C is a single character, stands for the character C.  C may not
147      be a backslash or an apostrophe.  E.g. %c':' stands for a colon.
148  %c'\O'
149      where O is a string of 1, 2, or 3 octal digits, stands for the
150      character with octal code O.  E.g. %c'\0' stands for a null character.
151* New diff line format specifications:
152  <PRINTF_SPEC>n
153      The line number, printed with <PRINTF_SPEC>.
154      E.g. `%5dn' prints the line number with a "%5d" format.
155  %c'C'
156  %c'\O'
157      The character C, or with octal code O, as above.
158* Supported <PRINTF_SPEC>s have the same meaning as with printf, but must
159  match the extended regular expression %-*[0-9]*(\.[0-9]*)?[doxX].
160* The format spec %0 introduced in version 2.1 has been removed, since it
161  is incompatible with printf specs like %02d.  To represent a null char,
162  use %c'\0' instead.
163* cmp and diff now conform to POSIX 1003.2-1992 (ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993)
164  if the underlying system conforms to POSIX:
165  - Some messages' wordings are changed in minor ways.
166  - ``White space'' is now whatever C's `isspace' says it is.
167  - When comparing directories, if `diff' finds a file that is not a regular
168    file or a directory, it reports the file's type instead of diffing it.
169    (As usual, it follows symbolic links first.)
170  - When signaled, sdiff exits with the signal's status, not with status 2.
171* Now portable to hosts where int, long, pointer, etc. are not all the same
172  size.
173* `cmp - -' now works like `diff - -'.
174
175
176User-visible changes in version 2.3:
177
178* New diff option: --horizon-lines=lines
179
180
181User-visible changes in version 2.1:
182
183* New diff options:
184  --{old,new,unchanged}-line-format='format'
185  --{old,new,unchanged,changed}-group-format='format'
186  -U
187* New diff3 option:
188  -A --show-all
189* diff3 -m now defaults to -A, not -E.
190* diff3 now takes up to three -L or --label options, not just two.
191  If just two options are given, they refer to the first two input files,
192  not the first and third input files.
193* sdiff and diff -y handle incomplete lines.
194
195
196User-visible changes in version 2.0:
197
198* Add sdiff and cmp programs.
199* Add Texinfo documentation.
200* Add configure script.
201* Improve diff performance.
202* New diff options:
203-x --exclude
204-X --exclude-from
205-P --unidirectional-new-file
206-W --width
207-y --side-by-side
208--left-column
209--sdiff-merge-assist
210--suppress-common-lines
211* diff options renamed:
212--label renamed from --file-label
213--forward-ed renamed from --reversed-ed
214--paginate renamed from --print
215--entire-new-file renamed from --entire-new-files
216--new-file renamed from --new-files
217--all-text removed
218* New diff3 options:
219-v --version
220* Add long-named equivalents for other diff3 options.
221* diff options -F (--show-function-line) and -I (--ignore-matching-lines)
222  can now be given more than once.
223
224
225
226Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004 Free Software
227Foundation, Inc.
228
229This file is part of GNU Diffutils.
230
231This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
232it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
233the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
234any later version.
235
236This program is distributed in the hope that they will be useful,
237but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
238MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
239GNU General Public License for more details.
240
241You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
242along with this program; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to
243the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
244Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
245