diff3 - find differences between three files

SYNOPSIS

       diff3 [options] mine older yours

DESCRIPTION

       The diff3 command compares three files and outputs descriptions of their differences.

       The  files  to  compare are mine, older, and yours.  At most one of these three file names
       may be -, which tells diff3 to read the standard input for that file.

   Options
       Below is a summary of all of the options that GNU diff3 accepts.  Multiple  single  letter
       options  (unless  they  take an argument) can be combined into a single command line arguÐ
       ment.

       -a     Treat all files as text and compare them line-by-line, even if they do  not  appear
              to be text.

       -A     Incorporate  all  changes  from older to yours into mine, surrounding all conflicts
              with bracket lines.

       -B     Old behavior of -A.  Shows non-conflicts.

       -e     Generate an ed script that incorporates all the changes from older  to  yours  into
              mine.

       -E     Like  -e,  except  bracket  lines  from overlapping changes' first and third files.
              With -e, an overlapping change looks like this:

              <<<<<<< mine
              lines from mine
              =======
              lines from yours
              >>>>>>> yours

       --ed   Generate an ed script that incorporates all the changes from older  to  yours  into
              mine.

       --easy-only
              Like -e, except output only the nonoverlapping changes.

       -i     Generate  w  and q commands at the end of the ed script for System V compatibility.
              This option must be combined with one of the -AeExX3 options, and may not  be  comÐ
              bined with -m.

       --initial-tab
              Output  a  tab  rather  than two spaces before the text of a line in normal format.
              This causes the alignment of tabs in the line to look normal.

       -L label
       --label=label
              are the names of the input files.  Thus diff3 -L X -L Y -L Z -m A  B  C  acts  like
              diff3  -m  A  B C , except that the output looks like it came from files named X, Y
              and Z rather than from files named A, B and C.

       -m
       --merge
              Apply the edit script to the first file and send the  result  to  standard  output.
              Unlike  piping  the  output  from diff3 to ed, this works even for binary files and
              incomplete lines.  -A is assumed if no edit script option is specified.

       --overlap-only
              Like -e, except output only the overlapping changes.

       --show-all
              Incorporate all unmerged changes from older to yours  into  mine,  surrounding  all
              overlapping changes with bracket lines.

       --show-overlap
              Like -e, except bracket lines from overlapping changes' first and third files.

       -T     Output  a  tab  rather  than two spaces before the text of a line in normal format.
              This causes the alignment of tabs in the line to look normal.

       --text Treat all files as text and compare them line-by-line, even if they do  not  appear
              to be text.

       -v
       --version
              Output the version number of diff3.

       -x     Like -e, except output only the overlapping changes.

       -X     Like  -E,  except  output  only  the overlapping changes.  In other words, like -x,
              except bracket changes as in -E.

       -3     Like -e, except output only the nonoverlapping changes.

SEE ALSO

       cmp(1), comm(1), diff(1), ed(1), patch(1), sdiff(1).

DIAGNOSTICS

       An exit status of 0 means diff3 was successful, 1 means some conflicts were found,  and  2
       means trouble.