diffutils: Context
2.2 Showing Differences in Their Context
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Usually, when you are looking at the differences between files, you will
also want to see the parts of the files near the lines that differ, to
help you understand exactly what has changed. These nearby parts of the
files are called the "context".
GNU 'diff' provides two output formats that show context around the
differing lines: "context format" and "unified format". It can
optionally show in which function or section of the file the differing
lines are found.
If you are distributing new versions of files to other people in the
form of 'diff' output, you should use one of the output formats that
show context so that they can apply the diffs even if they have made
small changes of their own to the files. 'patch' can apply the diffs in
this case by searching in the files for the lines of context around the
differing lines; if those lines are actually a few lines away from where
the diff says they are, 'patch' can adjust the line numbers accordingly
and still apply the diff correctly. ⇒Imperfect, for more
information on using 'patch' to apply imperfect diffs.
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