peterw@blia.BLI.COM (Peter Wisnovsky) (09/14/89)
I am working on some man pages and would like to be able to make copies of them, edit them and print them out with change bars for review. Does anyone know of a program that highlites the changes between two *roff files? (Incidentally, I don't have ftp access to anywhere...) Peter Wisnovsky
bill@lxn.eds.com (Bill Doviak) (09/15/89)
In article <9262@blia.BLI.COM> peterw@blia.BLI.COM (Peter Wisnovsky) writes: >I am working on some man pages and would like to be able to make >copies of them, edit them and print them out with change bars for >review. Does anyone know of a program that highlites the changes >between two *roff files? (Incidentally, I don't have ftp access to >anywhere...) See "diffmk(1)". I use this frequently. Sometimes the result needs to be repaired a bit. -- Bill Doviak | US MAIL: Electronic Data Systems (EDS) UUCP: vu-vlsi!lxn!bill | Lanark Building or bill%lxn.uucp@rutgers.edu | Center Valley, PA 18034 or lehi3b15!lxn!bill | Voice: (215) 282-1213
flowers@osf.osf.org (Ken Flowers) (09/16/89)
In article <9262@blia.BLI.COM> peterw@blia.BLI.COM (Peter Wisnovsky) writes: >I am working on some man pages and would like to be able to make >copies of them, edit them and print them out with change bars for >review. Does anyone know of a program that highlites the changes >between two *roff files? (Incidentally, I don't have ftp access to >anywhere...) > >Peter Wisnovsky UNIX has a very simple tool for doing this that is available on most machines: diffmk old.file new.file chbar.file Where: old.file is the name of the original file new.file is the name of the changed file chbar.file is the name of the file you want to create with changebars. diffmk puts in changebars and deletionstars into the chbar.file using the troff .mc directive. The .mc directive places the character given as its argument in the margin on every line until .mc is called with no argument. You can then process the chbar.file with troff to get the changebars. Hope this helps. Ken Flowers flowers@osf.org Documentation Engineer The Open Software Foundation
fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes) (09/17/89)
In article <9262@blia.BLI.COM>, peterw@blia.BLI.COM (Peter Wisnovsky) writes: > I am working on some man pages and would like to be able to make > copies of them, edit them and print them out with change bars for > review. Does anyone know of a program that highlites the changes > between two *roff files? (Incidentally, I don't have ftp access to > anywhere...) According to my handy-dandy SSC UNIX System 5 Pocket Reference: DIFFMK - Build 'Change Mark' File for n/troff % diffmk old new change Arguments: old original file new updated file change change mark input for n/troff This comes with the Text Processing system. -- Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155 (206)FOR-UNIX amc-gw!ssc!fyl or uunet!pilchuck!ssc!fyl or attmail!ssc!fyl
yost@esquire.UUCP (David A. Yost) (09/19/89)
In article <888@paperboy.OSF.ORG> flowers@osf.org (Ken Flowers) writes: >In article <9262@blia.BLI.COM> peterw@blia.BLI.COM (Peter Wisnovsky) writes: >>Does anyone know of a program that highlites the changes >>between two *roff files? > >UNIX has a very simple tool for doing this that is >available on most machines: > > diffmk old.file new.file chbar.file Beware diffmk. 1. It runs ed, and ed (still) has some annoying hard limits that you can exceed, causing bizarre results. 2. The last line of a range of filled text that should be marked with change bars may not be marked. I think there was a hack you could do to the file to correct this, but I can't remember what it is. I think change bars are an extremely valuable facility, making it feasible to check the correctness of successive document revisions without things falling through the cracks. (I mean, who is going to read every word of a large document over and over. Nobody.) It's too bad that the automatic, reliable generation of change bars is not taken more seriously. --dave yost
morrell@hpsal2.HP.COM (Michael Morrell) (09/20/89)
/ hpsal2:comp.text / yost@esquire.UUCP (David A. Yost) / 12:42 pm Sep 18, 1989 / In article <888@paperboy.OSF.ORG> flowers@osf.org (Ken Flowers) writes: >UNIX has a very simple tool for doing this that is >available on most machines: > > diffmk old.file new.file chbar.file Beware diffmk. 1. It runs ed, and ed (still) has some annoying hard limits that you can exceed, causing bizarre results. ---------- One other thing to watch out for because diffmk uses ed. Any line in the troff input which consists only of a "." (not uncommon in troff files), might confuse the output since a period is also used by ed to signify the end of a changed or appended section. Michael Morrell