BSDIFF(1)

💖 BSDIFF 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the bsdiff page from the General Commands Manual — yes it's a manual-page manual page, we love a self-aware queen 💅

✨ NAME ✨

bsdiff — generate a patch between two binary files 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

bsdiff ⟨oldfile⟩ ⟨newfile⟩ ⟨patchfile⟩

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so basically bsdiff takes oldfile and newfile, does a little side-by-side comparison moment, and writes into patchfile a binary patch that's all ready to be used by bspatch(1) ✨

and here's the part that's genuinely giving main character energy: when oldfile and newfile are two versions of an executable program, the patches it produces are on average a factor of five smaller than the ones produced by any other binary patch tool known to the author. five times smaller. FIVE. no cap, that's iconic 👑

heads up though bestie, she is HUNGRY for RAM 😭 bsdiff uses memory equal to 17 times the size of oldfile, and it needs an absolute minimum working set size of 8 times the size of oldfile. that's not a vibe, that's just the rules fr fr 💀

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• bspatch(1) — the other half of the duo, the one that actually applies the patch 🫶

✨ AUTHORS ✨

Colin Percival <cperciva@freebsd.org> — thank you for your service legend 🌸

and that's the whole page bestie, we ate and left no crumbs 🎀 this was FreeBSD, dated May 18, 2003 — like, the manual page itself says BSDIFF(1) at the top and bottom, which is very demure, very mindful of her 💜 bye ily, go patch something ✨🦋🌈