Re: RFC: diff(1) update

On Jun 13, 2007, at 2:10 AM, LI Xin wrote:
> I have done a first cut of bringing latest GNU diffutils (2.8.1) to  
> the
> FreeBSD base system.  This consists two parts of changes:
> [ ... ]
> Some notes:
>  - I have tried to keep as most our local features (DIFF_OPTIONS,  
> etc),
> but we still need to have some test cases to figure out whether  
> there is
> regression.
>  - Local changes are now maintained as patchsets.
>  - Still need to find a better way to handle local manpage changes...
>
> Comments?

Thanks for looking into updating diffutils, Xin.

Paul Eggert, the diffutils maintainer, has recently adopted a patch  
for sdiff which allows using "1" and "2" in addition to "l" and "r",  
which is exceptionally useful when people are running mergemaster.   
Also, v2.8.6 also includes a fix for invoking an editor in sdiff mode:

Paul Eggert <eggert_at_cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
> Chuck Swiger <chuck_at_pkix.net> writes:
>> At least with diff-2.7 or thereabouts, invoking the
>> external editor via "e l" or "e r" would always fail and return the
>> warning from this line of diff code:
>>
>>    fatal ("Subsidiary editor failed");
>
> You can double-check, but I think that bug was fixed here:
>
> 2004-04-12  Paul Eggert  <eggert_at_twinsun.com>
>
> 	* NEWS, configure.ac (AC_INIT): Version 2.8.6.
>         ...
> 	* src/sdiff.c (check_child_status): Renamed from ck_editor_status,  
> and
> 	accept a new arg MAX_OK_STATUS.  All callers changed.
> 	Handle status 126/127 as per POSIX.
>

	------

> Good point, thanks.  I installed this:
>
> 2007-06-06  Paul Eggert  <eggert_at_cs.ucla.edu>
>
> 	* NEWS:  Mention new sdiff aliases 1 and 2 for l and r.
> 	* doc/diff.texi (Merge Commands): Likewise.
> 	* src/sdiff.c (give_help): Give help for them.
> 	(edit): Support them.
>
> Index: NEWS
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvsroot/diffutils/diffutils/NEWS,v
> retrieving revision 1.25
> diff -u -p -r1.25 NEWS
> --- NEWS	5 Sep 2006 23:02:32 -0000	1.25
> +++ NEWS	6 Jun 2007 23:40:12 -0000
> _at__at_ -14,6 +14,8 _at__at_ User-visible changes since 2.8.7 (in "ve
>    "Utility Syntax Guidelines" in the Minutes of the January 2005
>    Meeting <http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html>.
>
> +* sdiff now understands '1' and '2' as synonyms for 'l' and 'r'.
> +
>  Version 2.8.7 contains no user-visible changes.

-- 
-Chuck