LSDIFF(1)

💖 LSDIFF(1) — like, the lsdiff manual page, but make it make sense 💖

okay bestie, pull up a chair, we're doing lsdiff from the Man pages collection and it's honestly such a useful little gremlin 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

lsdiff — show which files are modified by a patch 👀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

lsdiff [[-n] | [--line-number]] [[-p n] | [--strip-match=n]] [--strip=n]
       [--git-prefixes=strip|keep]
       [--git-extended-diffs=exclude|include] [--addprefix=PREFIX]
       [--addoldprefix=PREFIX] [--addnewprefix=PREFIX] [[-s] |
       [--status]] [[-E] | [--empty-files-as-removed]] [[-i PATTERN] |
       [--include=PATTERN]] [[-I FILE] | [--include-from-file=FILE]]
       [[-x PATTERN] | [--exclude=PATTERN]] [[-X FILE] |
       [--exclude-from-file=FILE]] [[-z] | [--decompress]] [[-# RANGE] |
       [--hunks=RANGE]] [--lines=RANGE] [[-FRANGE] | [--files=RANGE]]
       [[-H] | [--with-filename]] [[-h] | [--no-filename]] [[-v] |
       [--verbose]...] [file...]

lsdiff {[--help] | [--version] | [--filter ...] | [--grep ...]}

like, yes, that's a LOT of brackets. it's giving "choose your own adventure" 💅

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🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

List the files modified by a patch. that's the whole job. main character behaviour, honestly ✨

You can use unified, context, and Git format diffs with this program. Git format includes support for binary files, file renames, permission mode changes, and other Git-specific diff features. so yeah, it's not just the old-school diff flavour — Git diffs get the full VIP treatment too 🫶

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

• -n, --line-number — Display the line number that each patch begins at. If verbose output is requested (using -nv), each hunk of each patch is listed as well. 💫

For each file that is modified, a line is generated containing the line number of the beginning of the patch, followed by a Tab character, followed by the name of the file that is modified. If -v is given once, following each of these lines will be one line for each hunk, consisting of a Tab character, the line number that the hunk begins at, another Tab character, the string “Hunk #”, and the hunk number (starting at 1).

If the -v is given twice in conjunction with -n (i.e. -nvv), the format is slightly different: hunk-level descriptive text is shown after each hunk number, and the --number-files option is enabled. yes, double verbose is a whole different vibe, no cap 😭

• -N, --number-files — File numbers are listed, beginning at 1, before each filename. 🔢
• -#RANGE, --hunks=RANGE — Only list hunks within the specified RANGE. Hunks are numbered from 1, and the range is a comma-separated list of numbers or “first-last” spans, optionally preceded by a modifier 'x' which inverts the entire range; either the first or the last in the span may be omitted to indicate no limit in that direction. so like 'x' = "not these ones, bestie" 🙈
• --lines=RANGE — Only list hunks that contain lines from the original file that lie within the specified RANGE. Lines are numbered from 1, and the range is a comma-separated list of numbers or “first-last” spans, optionally preceded by a modifier 'x' which inverts the entire range; either the first or the last in the span may be omitted to indicate no limit in that direction.
• -F=RANGE, --files=RANGE — Only list files indicated by the specified RANGE. Files are numbered from 1 in the order they appear in the patch input, and the range is a comma-separated list of numbers or “first-last” spans, optionally preceded by a modifier 'x' which inverts the entire range; either the first or the last in the span may be omitted to indicate no limit in that direction.
• -pn, --strip-match=n — When matching, ignore the first n components of the pathname. ✂️
• --strip=n — Remove the first n components of the pathname before displaying it.
• --git-prefixes=strip|keep — How to handle a/ and b/ prefixes in Git diff filenames. With strip, removes the prefixes both for filename matching (when using -i and -x options) and for filename output (similar to --strip). With keep (default), preserves existing behavior. Applies to both Git-specific diffs (binary files, renames, mode changes) and traditional diffs when part of a Git patch.

Note: With keep, copy and rename operations are treated as if they had a/ and b/ prefixes for consistency with other Git operations. The default will change to strip in version 0.5.0. ⚠️ so heads up, the default is literally moving house in 0.5.0 💀

• --git-extended-diffs=exclude|include — Controls whether to process Git diffs without traditional content hunks. This includes renames, copies, mode-only changes, and binary files. With exclude (default in 0.4.x), these diffs are skipped. With include (default in 0.5.0+), these diffs are processed normally. This option affects file numbering with -N and file filtering with -F. 🌈
• --addprefix=PREFIX — Prefix the pathname with PREFIX before displaying it. 🎀
• --addoldprefix=PREFIX — Prefix pathnames for old files with PREFIX before displaying them.
• --addnewprefix=PREFIX — Prefix pathnames for new files with PREFIX before displaying them.
• -s, --status — Show file additions, modifications and removals. A file addition is indicated by a “+”, a removal by a “-”, and a modification by a “!”. green flag / red flag / interesting behaviour flag 🔥
• -E, --empty-files-as-absent, --empty-files-as-removed — Treat empty files as absent for the purpose of displaying file additions, modifications and removals. For example, a file with an empty old version and additions in the new version will be treated as a file addition (+) rather than a modification (!).
• -iPATTERN, --include=PATTERN — Include only files matching PATTERN. 💖
• -IFILE, --include-from-file=FILE — Include only files matching any pattern listed in FILE, one pattern per line.
• -xPATTERN, --exclude=PATTERN — Exclude files matching PATTERN.
• -XFILE, --exclude-from-file=FILE — Exclude files matching any pattern listed in FILE, one pattern per line.
• -z, --decompress — Decompress files with extensions .gz and .bz2. 🗜️✨
• -H, --with-filename — Print the name of the patch file containing each patch. 🏷️
• -h, --no-filename — Suppress the name of the patch file containing each patch.
• -v, --verbose — Verbose output. stack it up for more yapping 🌸
• --help — Display a short usage message.
• --version — Display the version number of lsdiff.
• --filter — Behave like filterdiff(1) instead. 🧚 identity crisis, iconic
• --grep — Behave like grepdiff(1) instead.

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🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

filterdiff(1), grepdiff(1), patchview(1) — the whole friend group 💜

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⭐ EXAMPLES ⭐

To sort the order of touched files in a patch, you can use:

lsdiff patch | sort -u | \
  xargs -rn1 filterdiff patch -i

To show only added files in a patch:

lsdiff -s patch | grep '^+' | \
  cut -c2- | xargs -rn1 filterdiff patch -i

To show the headers of all file hunks:

lsdiff -n patch | (while read n file
  do sed -ne "$n,$(($n+1))p" patch
done)

copy them exactly, bestie, they ate and left no crumbs 🔥

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

Tim Waugh <twaugh@redhat.com> Package maintainer 👑

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this one's from the patchutils situation, dated 23 Jan 2009 — yes queen, vintage but still serving. 🕰️💅 go forth and lsdiff something, ily, bye! 🦋🎀✨