blm@cxsea.UUCP (Brian Matthews) (06/14/88)
Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn> (gwyn@brl.arpa) writes: |Removing the ability to get context diffs when they are wanted WOULD |be a bad idea. Removing this feature from "diff" itself is not a |bad idea; I hate for "diff" to do extra work every time I run it when |I virtually never use the context feature. Consider | diff a b | diffc a b |where "diffc" reads the "diff" information in parallel with the two |files "a" and "b" to produce the context-diff output. By separating |the two functions, it is not only likely to speed up non-context use |of "diff" but also it is more likely to get the answer right, and it |is easier to work on improving "diffc". (Existing context diff output |is sometimes pretty horrible, for example larger than the inputs.) In general I agree, the problem I have using diffc (I'm running System V and use diffc quite regularly) is that one of it's arguments can't be stdin. You could fix diffc to copy its input to a temporary file, but you still couldn't do something like diff - b | diffc - b (and generate a context diff of stdin and file b). -- Brian L. Matthews blm@cxsea.UUCP ...{mnetor,uw-beaver!ssc-vax}!cxsea!blm +1 206 251 6811 Computer X Inc. - a division of Motorola New Enterprises
haugj@pigs.UUCP (The Beach Bum) (06/17/88)
In article <2418@cxsea.UUCP>, blm@cxsea.UUCP (Brian Matthews) writes: > In general I agree, the problem I have using diffc (I'm running System V > and use diffc quite regularly) is that one of it's arguments can't be > stdin. There is a version of diffc which will produce a context diff using stdin as one file. Or at least it did the last time I checked. It was posted late last fall or winter and should be in Volume 13 or 14 of the comp.unix.sources archive. - John. -- The Beach Bum Big "D" Home for Wayward Hackers UUCP: ...!killer!rpp386!jfh jfh@rpp386.uucp :SMAILERS "You are in a twisty little maze of UUCP connections, all alike" -- fortune