NAME

       tdcompare - compare two recordings of a terminal program

SYNOPSIS

       tdcompare [OPTIONS]... OLD NEW

DESCRIPTION

       tdcompare  compares  two  recordings  of  a  terminal  program  to  determine whether they
       represent the same output. The comparison can be both at the input/output level, or at the
       visual level. When comparing at the input/output level, the difference will be reported as
       line numbers in the OLD and NEW files. For visual comparisons, a  textual  description  of
       the  first difference can be produced, and a picture of the first different terminal state
       can be written (if termdebug was compiled with Cairo support).

       tdcompare is useful to verify that a new recording of the same program produced  the  same
       result. To do on-line verification, use tdreplay(1) instead.

OPTIONS

       tdcompare accepts the following options:

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

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

       -v, --visual-compare
              Check  for  visual equality, rather than exact input/output behaviour.  (Requires a
              build with ncurses support.)

       -D, --describe
              Write a description of the first visual difference encountered.  Only  useful  with
              -v/--visual-compare. (Requires a build with ncurses support.)

       -p name, --picture=name
              Write  a  picture  of the difference to name. Only useful with -v/--visual-compare.
              (Requires a build with ncurses and Cairo support.)

       -f font, --font=font
              Use font to show text in generated  pictures.  Only  useful  with  -p/--picture  or
              -P/--picture-series. (Requires a build with ncurses and Cairo support.)

       -W width, --cell-width=width
              Use cells of width pixels wide in generated pictures. Only useful with -p/--picture
              or -P/--picture-series. (Requires a build with ncurses and Cairo support.)

       -H height, --cell-height=height
              Use  cells  of  height  pixels  wide  in  generated  pictures.  Only  useful   with
              -p/--picture  or  -P/--picture-series.  (Requires  a  build  with ncurses and Cairo
              support.)

       -P name, --picture-series=name
              Create a series of pictures, representing the different visual steps in the  client
              interface, using name as the file name template. name is a printf(3) format string,
              where a single d-type conversion is required.  (Requires a build with  ncurses  and
              Cairo support.)

       -s, --stop-on-difference
              Stop   when   the   first   visual   difference   is   found.   Only   valid   with
              -P/--picture-series.

       To stop tdcompare from interpreting file names that start with a dash as options, one  can
       specify  a double dash (--) after which tdreplay will interpret any following arguments as
       files to read.

BUGS

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

AUTHOR

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

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2010,2012-2013 G.P. Halkes
       termdebug 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/termdebug.

SEE ALSO

       termdebug(1), tdrecord(1), tdrerecord(1), tdview(1), tdreplay(1)