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NAME

       delta - make a delta (change) to an SCCS file (DEVELOPMENT)

SYNOPSIS

       delta [-nps][-g list][-m mrlist][-r SID][-y[comment]] file...

DESCRIPTION

       The delta utility shall be used to permanently introduce into the named SCCS files changes
       that were made to the files retrieved by get (called the g-files, or generated files).

OPTIONS

       The delta utility shall conform to the Base Definitions  volume  of  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,
       Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines, except that the -y option has an optional option-
       argument. This optional option-argument shall not be presented as a separate argument.

       The following options shall be supported:

       -r  SID
              Uniquely identify which delta is to be made to the  SCCS  file.  The  use  of  this
              option  shall be necessary only if two or more outstanding get commands for editing
              ( get -e) on the same SCCS file were done by the same person (login name). The  SID
              value  specified  with  the  -r  option  can be either the SID specified on the get
              command line or the SID to be made as reported by the get utility; see get .

       -s     Suppress the report to standard output of the activity associated with  each  file.
              See the STDOUT section.

       -n     Specify  retention  of  the  edited g-file (normally removed at completion of delta
              processing).

       -g  list
              Specify a list (see get for the definition of list) of deltas that shall be ignored
              when the file is accessed at the change level (SID) created by this delta.

       -m  mrlist
              Specify a modification request (MR) number that the application shall supply as the
              reason for creating the new delta. This shall be used if the SCCS file  has  the  v
              flag set; see admin .

       If -m is not used and '-' is not specified as a file argument, and the standard input is a
       terminal, the prompt described in the STDOUT section shall be written to  standard  output
       before  the  standard  input  is  read; if the standard input is not a terminal, no prompt
       shall be issued.

       MRs in a list shall  be  separated  by  <blank>s  or  escaped  <newline>s.   An  unescaped
       <newline> shall terminate the MR list. The escape character is <backslash>.

       If  the  v flag has a value, it shall be taken to be the name of a program which validates
       the correctness of the MR numbers. If a non-zero exit  status  is  returned  from  the  MR
       number  validation  program, the delta utility shall terminate. (It is assumed that the MR
       numbers were not all valid.)

       -y[comment]
              Describe the reason for making the delta. The comment shall be an  arbitrary  group
              of  lines  that  would  meet  the  definition of a text file. Implementations shall
              support comments from zero to 512 bytes and  may  support  longer  values.  A  null
              string  (specified  as either -y, -y "" , or in response to a prompt for a comment)
              shall be considered a valid comment.

       If -y is not specified and '-' is not specified as a file argument, and the standard input
       is  a  terminal,  the  prompt described in the STDOUT section shall be written to standard
       output before the standard input is read; if the standard input  is  not  a  terminal,  no
       prompt  shall  be  issued.  An  unescaped  <newline> shall terminate the comment text. The
       escape character is <backslash>.

       The -y option shall be required if the file operand is specified as '-' .

       -p     Write (to standard output) the SCCS file differences before and after the delta  is
              applied in diff format; see diff .

OPERANDS

       The following operand shall be supported:

       file   A  pathname  of  an  existing SCCS file or a directory. If file is a directory, the
              delta utility shall behave as though each file in the directory were specified as a
              named  file,  except  that  non-SCCS files (last component of the pathname does not
              begin with s.) and unreadable files shall be silently ignored.

       If exactly one file operand appears, and it is '-' , the standard  input  shall  be  read;
       each  line  of  the  standard  input  shall  be taken to be the name of an SCCS file to be
       processed.  Non-SCCS files and unreadable files shall be silently ignored.

STDIN

       The standard input shall be a text file used only in the following cases:

        * To read an mrlist or a comment (see the -m and -y options).

        * A file operand shall be specified as '-' . In this case, the -y option must be used  to
          specify  the  comment, and if the SCCS file has the v flag set, the -m option must also
          be used to specify the MR list.

INPUT FILES

       Input files shall be text files whose data is to be included in the  SCCS  files.  If  the
       first character of any line of an input file is <SOH> in the POSIX locale, the results are
       unspecified. If this file contains more than 99999 lines, the number of lines recorded  in
       the header for this file shall be 99999 for this delta.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of delta:

       LANG   Provide  a  default  value for the internationalization variables that are unset or
              null. (See the  Base  Definitions  volume  of  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,  Section  8.2,
              Internationalization Variables for the precedence of internationalization variables
              used to determine the values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL If set to  a  non-empty  string  value,  override  the  values  of  all  the  other
              internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE
              Determine  the  locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as
              characters (for  example,  single-byte  as  opposed  to  multi-byte  characters  in
              arguments and input files).

       LC_MESSAGES
              Determine  the  locale  that  should  be  used to affect the format and contents of
              diagnostic messages written to standard error, and informative messages written  to
              standard output.

       NLSPATH
              Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES .

       TZ     Determine  the timezone in which the time and date are written in the SCCS file. If
              the TZ variable is unset or NULL, an unspecified system default timezone is used.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

       If SIGINT is caught, temporary files shall be cleaned up and delta shall exit with a  non-
       zero  exit  code.  The  standard  action shall be taken for all other signals; see Utility
       Description Defaults .

STDOUT

       The standard output shall be used only for the following messages in the POSIX locale:

        * Prompts (see the -m and -y options) in the following formats:

          "MRs? "

          "comments? "

       The MR prompt, if written, shall always precede the comments prompt.

        * A report of each file's activities (unless the -s option is specified) in the following
          format:

          "%s\n%d inserted\n%d deleted\n%d unchanged\n", <New SID>,
              <number of lines inserted>, <number of lines deleted>,
              <number of lines unchanged>

STDERR

       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

       Any SCCS files updated shall be files of an unspecified format.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

   System Date and Time
       When  a delta is added to an SCCS file, the system date and time shall be recorded for the
       new delta. If a get is performed using an SCCS file with a date recorded apparently in the
       future, the behavior is unspecified.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0     Successful completion.

       >0     An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

       Problems  can  arise  if  the  system  date  and time have been modified (for example, put
       forward and then back again, or unsynchronized clocks across a network) and can also arise
       when different values of the TZ environment variable are used.

       Problems  of  a  similar nature can also arise for the operation of the get utility, which
       records the date and time in the file body.

EXAMPLES

       None.

RATIONALE

       None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       Utility Description Defaults , admin , diff , get , prs , rmdel

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and  reproduced  in  electronic  form  from  IEEE  Std
       1003.1,  2003  Edition,  Standard  for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
       Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003  by
       the  Institute  of  Electrical  and  Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the
       event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE  and  The  Open  Group
       Standard,  the  original  IEEE  and  The  Open Group Standard is the referee document. The
       original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .