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Re: diff -b does not actually work with newlines
From: |
Paul Eggert |
Subject: |
Re: diff -b does not actually work with newlines |
Date: |
Thu, 19 Jul 2007 11:31:57 -0700 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.1 (gnu/linux) |
David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:
> b) add options, say
Easier said than done, I'm afraid.
> a) the bit about "not including <newline>s" be added to the info
> file and help string. It is absolutely essential.
Thanks, I made the following change to the documentation. I don't
agree that the help strings need change. Help strings are not
intended for detailed description; they're intended only as brief
reminders. This issue doesn't make the cut. The help strings are
already too long as it is.
2007-07-19 Paul Eggert <address@hidden>
* doc/diff.texi (White Space): Note that newline always ends a line,
so -w doesn't ignore newline-related changes. Problem reported by
David Kastrup.
--- doc/diff.texi 6 Jun 2007 23:40:16 -0000 1.31
+++ doc/diff.texi 19 Jul 2007 18:26:38 -0000 1.32
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
\input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
address@hidden $Id: diff.texi,v 1.31 2007/06/06 23:40:16 eggert Exp $
address@hidden $Id: diff.texi,v 1.32 2007/07/19 18:26:38 eggert Exp $
@comment %**start of header
@setfilename diff.info
@include version.texi
@@ -309,7 +309,7 @@ Here lyeth muche rychnesse in lytell spa
The @option{-w} or @option{--ignore-all-space} option is stronger still.
It ignores differences even if one line has white space where
the other line has none. @dfn{White space} characters include
-tab, newline, vertical tab, form feed, carriage return, and space;
+tab, vertical tab, form feed, carriage return, and space;
some locales may define additional characters to be white space.
With this option, @command{diff} considers the
following two lines to be equivalent, where @samp{$} denotes the line
@@ -320,6 +320,12 @@ Here lyeth muche rychnesse in lytell s
He relyeth much erychnes seinly tells pace. --John Heywood ^M$
@end example
+For many other programs newline is also a white space character, but
address@hidden is a line-oriented program and a newline character
+always ends a line. Hence the @option{-w} or
address@hidden option does not ignore newline-related
+changes; it ignores only other white space changes.
+
@node Blank Lines
@section Suppressing Differences Whose Lines Are All Blank
@cindex blank line difference suppression