Ubuntu Manpage: dwdiff - a delimited word diff program

NAME

       dwdiff - a delimited word diff program

SYNOPSIS

       dwdiff [OPTIONS] OLD FILE NEW FILE
       dwdiff [OPTIONS] --diff-input [DIFF FILE]

DESCRIPTION

       dwdiff  is a diff program that operates at the word level instead of the line level. It is
       different from wdiff in that it allows the user  to  specify  what  should  be  considered
       whitespace,  and in that it takes an optional list of characters that should be considered
       delimiters. Delimiters are single characters that are treated as if they are  words,  even
       when  there is no whitespace separating them from preceding words or delimiters. dwdiff is
       mostly  command-line  compatible  with  wdiff.  Only  the  --autopager,   --terminal   and
       --avoid-wraps options are not supported.

       The  default  output  from  dwdiff  is  the  new text, with the deleted and inserted parts
       annotated with markers. Command line options are available to change both what is printed,
       and the markers.

OPTIONS

dwdiff accepts the following options (Note that all strings will first be escape expanded.
All standard \-escapes are supported, as well as \u and \U Unicode escapes):

-h, --help
Display a short help message.

-v, --version
Print version and copyright information.

-d delimiters, --delimiters=delimiters
Specify a list of characters to be used as delimiters. The default is empty.

-P, --punctuation
Use punctuation characters as delimiters. The exact set of punctuation characters
depends on the current locale.

-W whitespace, --white-space=whitespace
Specify a list of characters to be used as whitespace. The default set of
whitespace characters depends on the current locale.

-u, --diff-input
Interpret the input as the output from diff in the Unified Diff format (usually
produced by diff -u). In this case only one input file is allowed. This option
allows reformating diff output with dwdiff, and is useful for example to post-
process the output of svn diff.

-1, --no-deleted
Suppress printing of words deleted from the first file.

-2, --no-inserted
Suppress printing of words inserted in the second file.

-3, --no-common
Suppress printing of words common to both files.

-L[width], --line-numbers[=width]
Show line numbers at the start of each line. The line numbers displayed are the
line number in the old file and the line number in the new file respectively. The
optional width argument is the minimum number of positions per line number.

-Cnum, --context=num
Show num lines of context before and after each changes. A line with only -- is
printed between blocks of changes.

-s, --statistics
Print statistics when done. The numbers printed include the number of words from in
both files, the number of deleted words, the number of inserted words, and the
number of changed words. The number of changed words is counted as the number of
words that are removed from the first file, and the number of words that replace
them from the second file. All of these numbers are also expressed as a percentage
of the total number of words in the file the words came from.

-i, --ignore-case
Ignore differences in case when comparing words. This option is only available if
the diff program that is called provides it.

-I, --ignore-formatting
Ignore differences in formatting of characters. This option switches to using the
Unicode compatibility decomposition instead of the canonical decomposition. The
compatibility decomposition discards formatting information. For example, the
ligature fi will be decomposed into two separate characters for the purposes of
comparison. However, also super- and subscript will be regarded equal as well as
different rotations of the same character.

-c[spec], --color[=spec]
Color mode. The optional spec can be used to customize the colors. spec consists
of [delete],[insert]. If either is omited it will be set to its default color
(bright red or bright green respectively). Both parts of the spec consist of
[foreground][:background]. To obtain a list of permissible color names, use the
word ``list'' as spec. Alternatively, you can specify any escape sequence to set
attributes as a color by prepending e:.

The standard markers for the begin and end of deleted and inserted text are
suppressed, but any markers specified on the command line will still be printed.

-l, --less-mode
As -p but also overstrike deleted whitespace.

-p, --printer
Use overstriking with an underscore and bold text to emphasize changes. This is
implemented by first printing the underscore or a duplicate of the character to be
printed, followed by a backspace, followed by the character. On regular terminals
you won't see any effect. The less(1) command will however show underlined and bold
text.

The standard markers for the begin and end of deleted and inserted text are
suppressed, but any markers specified on the command line will still be printed.

-mnum, --match-context=num
Use num words of context before and after words for matching. Words in the old text
will then only match words in the new text if words surrounding them are also
equal. This improves the output for dwdiff for large changes with frequently
occurring words. However, using context requires more disk space and more
processing time. The default value is 1. Set this option to 0 to revert to the pre
1.5 behavior.

--aggregate-changes
Allow multiple close changes to be treated as one change, if context words are used
(see --match-context). This option reduces the processing time as the changes
reported by the diff program are not post-processed to give more precise results.

-A algorithm, --algorithm=algorithm
Select the algorithm to be used for determining differences. There are three
possible values for algorithm: best, which tries to find the minimal set of
changes, normal, which trades some optimality for speed, and fast, which assumes
that the input is large and contains few changes. By default the normal algorithm
is used.

-S[marker], --paragraph-separator[=marker]
Show insertion or deletion of blocks of lines with only whitespace characters. A
special marker is inserted into the output to indicate these blocks. The default
marker is --.

--wdiff-output
Create wdiff compatible output. The dwdiff program uses a different output
algorithm, which provides a more intuitive output.

-w string, --start-delete=string
Specify a string to mark begin of deleted text. The default is [-.

-x string, --stop-delete=string
Specify a string to mark end of deleted text. The default is -].

-y string, --start-insert=string
Specify a string to mark begin of inserted text. The default is {+.

-z string, --stop-insert=string
Specify a string to mark end of inserted text. The default is +}.

-R, --repeat-markers
Repeat the begin and end markers at the start and end of line if a change crosses a
newline.

--profile=name
Load the profile with name name from the .dwdiffrc file in the user's home
directory. Only the last profile named is actually read, unless it is followed by a
--no-profile option. By default the profile named default is read.

--no-profile
Disable reading of profiles, unless followed by another --profile option. This
also disables reading the default profile.

A single dash (-) as a file can be used to denote standard input. Only one file can be
read from standard input. To stop dwdiff from interpreting file names that start with a
dash as options, one can specify a double dash (--) after which dwdiff will interpret any
following arguments as files to read.

The exit status of dwdiff indicates the result of the comparison: 0 if the files are the
same, 1 if the files are different. Should an error occur, dwdiff will exit with status 2.

PROFILES

       Since version 2.1.0, dwdiff allows users to create profiles. A profile is a set of options
       that  can be loaded using the --profile option. Profiles are specified in the .dwdiffrc in
       the user's home directory. The format of the .dwdiffrc file is as follows:

       A line contains either a profile header (a text enclosed in [])  or  a  long  option  name
       without  leading  dashes,  optionally followed by it's argument. Arguments are stripped of
       whitespace surrounding it. If an argument starts and ends with matching double  or  single
       quotes, these are removed as well. Comments can be included by starting a line with a hash
       mark (#).

       If no profile is  specified,  the  profile  named  default  will  be  loaded,  unless  the
       --no-profile option is specified. Here is an example .dwdiffrc:

            [default]
            color red,blue
            punctuation

            [html]
            start-delete <span style="color=red">
            stop-delete </span>
            start-insert <span style="color=green">
            stop-insert </span>

            [space-only]
            # Use only a space as whitespace.
            white-space " "

BUGS

       If  you  think you have found a bug, please check that you are using the latest version of
       dwdiff <http://os.ghalkes.nl/dwdiff.html>. When reporting bugs, please include  a  minimal
       example that demonstrates the problem.

AUTHOR

       G.P. Halkes <dwdiff@ghalkes.nl>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2006-2017 G.P. Halkes and others
       dwdiff is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
       For  more  details on the license, see the file COPYING in the documentation directory. On
       Un*x systems this is usually /usr/share/doc/dwdiff-$VERSION$.