editdiff Command in Linux

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Editdiff is a command-line utility used to adjust hand-edited diff files, ensuring they accurately reflect changes between two files. Manual modifications to a diff file can introduce inconsistencies such as incorrect line numbers and change counts.

Table of Contents

Editdiff recalculates these metrics to maintain accuracy in the diff representation. In this tutorial, we’ll discuss several use cases of the editdiff command in Linux using suitable examples.

• editdiff Command in Linux
• Syntax of editdiff Command
• Manual Page of editdiff Command
• Checking Version of the editdiff Command
• How Does the editdiff Command Work?

editdiff Command in Linux

The editdiff command is used in Linux to fix offsets and counts of a hand-edited diff file. The editdiff command can handle the following types of changes −

• Modify file content lines.
• Insert or delete lines.
• Add, remove, or change the context lines.
• Add a hunk (@@-prefixed section).
• Remove several hunks (@@-prefixed section).

Syntax of editdiff Command

The synopsis of this command is illustrated in the following snippet −

editdiff [options] oldFile newFile diffFile

Here, oldFile is the original file before the changes, newFile is the modified file after the changes, and diffFile is the hand-edited diff file that you want to correct.

Manual Page of editdiff Command

You can access the manual page for editdiff to get a detailed understanding of the command and its options −

man editdiff

Alternatively, we can access the command’s help page to show the short usage message −

editdiff --help

Checking Version of the editdiff Command

The editdiff command is preinstalled in most Linux distributions, we can confirm its installation by checking its version using the following command −

editdiff --version

The output ensures that the version 0.4.2 is installed on our system −

How Does the editdiff Command Work?

Let’s go through the below-listed stepwise instructions to understand the working of the editdiff command −

Step 1: Create Sample Files

Let’s create a couple of sample text files named “originalFile.txt” and “updateFile.txt”, with the following content −

cat > originalFile.txt
Hello, welcome to tutorialspoint.com

cat > updatedFile.txt
Hi, welcome to tutorialspoint.com

The output shows the content of both files −

Step 2: Create a diff File

Now run the diff command to create a diff file that contains the changes −

diff -u originalFile.txt updatedFile.txt > outputFile.diff

The command executes successfully, as shown in the following snippet −

Let’s run the following command to see the content of the outputFile −

cat outputFile.diff

Step 3: Edit a diff File

Now we can use the editdiff command to edit(if needed) the changes in the outputFile.diff −

editdiff outputFile.diff

This command prompts you to specify a number to select an editor −

Here, we type 1 and press Enter to open the outputFile.diff in the nano editor −

Now we can manually edit the diff file according to our requirements.

Step 4: Apply the Edited diff

Run the following command to apply the edited diff file to originalFile.txt −

patch originalFile.txt < outputFile.diff

This command will patch the originalFile.txt −

The originalFile.txt will now be updated as follows −

The output confirms that the originalFile.txt has been modified according to the updatedFile.txt.

Conclusion

The editdiff command in Linux is used to correct and adjust hand-edited diff files to ensure that they accurately represent changes between two files. It recalculates line numbers and changes count to address inconsistencies that may arise from manual edits.

In this tutorial, we explored the purpose of editdiff, how to use it to fix and apply changes to diff files, and reviewed its syntax and functionality. We also covered practical steps including creating and editing diff files and applying these changes to update the original files.