flipdiff Command in Linux
The flipdiff command in Linux exchanges the order of two incremental patches. The incremental patches are applied sequentially. To swap the order of the sequence of two incremental patches the flipdiff command is used. It can be a handy tool in a situation when a higher-order patch is to be applied before the lower-order patch.
Table of Contents
Here is a comprehensive guide to the options available with the flipdiff command −
Syntax of flipdiff Command
The syntax of the Linux flipdiff command is as follows −
flipdiff [options] [patch1] [patch2]
The [options] field in the syntax is used to specify the options of the flipdiff command. The [patch1] and [patch2] indicate the incremental patch files to be flipped.
flipdiff Command Options
The options for the flipdiff command are listed below −
| Flag | Option | Description |
|---|---|---|
| -p n | --strip-match=n | It ignores the first n patch-name components when comparing filenames |
| -q | --quiet | It produces quiet output |
| -U n | --unified=n | It attempts to display the n lines of context |
| -d pattern | --drop-context=pattern | It drops the context from the files matching a specified pattern |
| -i | --ignore-case | It ignores the case |
| -w | --ignore-all-space | It ignores all the whitespace changes in the patches |
| -b | --ignore-space-change | It ignores changes in the amount of whitespace |
| -B | --ignore-blank-lines | It ignores changes whose lines are all blank |
| -z | --decompress | It decompresses files with .gz and .bz2 extensions |
| --in-place | It writes the output to the original input file | |
| --help | It displays a brief help of the command | |
| --version | It displays the version of the command |
Examples of flipdiff Command in Linux
This section demonstrates the usage of flipdiff command in Linux with examples −
- Flipping Patch Files
- Writing the Output to the Original File
- Ignoring Case Differences
- Ignoring all Whitespace Changes
- Displaying Context
- Handling Compressed Patch Files
- Swapping Patch Files using Multiple Options
Flipping Patch Files
To swap the two incremental patch files use the flipdiff command with the patch filenames −
flipdiff patch1.diff patch2.diff
Writing the Output to the Original File
To swap the incremental patch files and write back the output to the original file, use the --in-place option −
sudo flipdiff --in-place patch1.diff patch2.diff
Successful execution of the command will not produce any output.
Ignoring Case Differences
To swap the patch files while ignoring the case differences, use the -i or --ignore-case options −
flipdiff -i patch1.diff patch2.diff
Ignoring all Whitespace Changes
To swap the patch files while ignoring all the whitespace changes, use the -w or --ignore-all-space option −
flipdiff -w patch1.diff patch2.diff
Displaying Context
To display the unified context while swapping the incremental patch files, use the -U, or --unified options with the number of lines to be displayed −
flipdiff -U 4 patch1.diff patch2.diff
Handling Compressed Patch Files
To handle the compressed patch files, use the -z or --decompress options −
flipdiff -z patch1.diff.gz patch2.diff.gz
It automatically handles the .gz and .bz2 files.
Swapping Patch Files using Multiple Options
The patch files can be swapped using more than one option. For example, to swap patch files while ignoring the amount of whitespace changes, and displaying the context, use the flipdiff command in the following way −
flipdiff -b -U 5 patch1.diff patch2.diff
Conclusion
The flipdiff command in Linux is used to exchange the incremental patch files. The patch files are applied sequentially. However, to change the sequence of two patch files the flipdiff command is used. The flipdiff offers various options to modify the output behavior.
This tutorial covered the flipdiff command, its syntax, options, and usage in Linux through different examples.