Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 14:03:59 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Jude Dashiell <dashiell AT clark DOT net>
cc: opendos AT delorie DOT com, djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: diff and opendos 7.02 bug
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.96.971111120415.19154A-100000@clark.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.971112140341.20379E-100000@is>
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On Tue, 11 Nov 1997, Jude Dashiell wrote:

> patch c:\commo\commo1.dif <cr>

I don't think you can invoke `patch' like this.  You need to say
either this:

       patch < c:\commo\commo1.dif

or this:

       patch -i c:\commo\commo1.dif

> The djgpp patch command appeared to get "Lost In Space" and so I deleted
> the .dif files already made and tried that reversed command shown
> above.

The correct way of using `diff' is "diff -c old new", i.e., first the
old version of the file, then the new version.

> One suggestion for the diff documentation on its revision would be to
> include the commands that did each one of the diff operations and
> produced the dif files in the examples.
> That way users could see real live syntax in action along with its
> associated output.

Did you read the documentation for `diff' in its entirety?  I think it
does include what you need.  From the DOS prompt type:

      info diff comparison

and read there.  There are several sections there which describe
different output formats and how different options affect the output,
including two example files and several outputs produced for certain
options.  Seems pretty much clear and comprehensive to me.