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Using diff & patch

Comparing and merging files
diff, diff3, sdiff, cmp,
and patch 1.3, diff 2.7
and patch 2.1

Copyright © 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this documentation provided 
the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this documentation 
under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the entire resulting derived work 
is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this documentation into 
another language, under the above conditions for modified versions.
GNU diff was written by Mike Haertel, David Hayes, Richard Stallman, Len Tower, and 
Paul Eggert. Wayne Davison designed and implemented the unified output format.
The basic algorithm is described in "An O(ND) Difference Algorithm and its Variations" 
by Eugene W. Myers, in Algorithmica; Vol. 1, No. 2, 1986; pp. 251–266; and in "A File 
Comparison Program" by Webb Miller and Eugene W. Myers, in Software—Practice and 
Experience; Vol. 15, No. 11, 1985; pp. 1025–1040.
The algorithm was independently discovered as described in "Algorithms for Approximate 
String Matching" by E. Ukkonen, in Information and Control; Vol. 64, 1985, pp. 100–118.
GNU diff3 was written by Randy Smith.
GNU sdiff was written by Thomas Lord.
GNU cmp was written by Torbjorn Granlund and David MacKenzie.
patch was written mainly by Larry Wall; the GNU enhancements were written mainly 
by Wayne Davison and David MacKenzie.
Parts of this manual are adapted from a manual page written by Larry Wall, with his 
permission.
This documentation has been prepared byCygnus Technical Publications; 
to contact the Cygnus Solutions Documentation staff, email: doc@cygnus.com.
Copyright © 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997  Cygnus Solutions. All rights reserved.
GNUPro, the GNUPro logo are trademarks of Cygnus Solutions. 
All other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

The following documentation discusses comparing and merging files.

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