rdiff(1)

💖 rdiff 💖

okay bestie, so rdiff is a whole manual page in the General Commands Manual (section 1, the classics 💅) and it's literally here to compute and apply signature-based file differences. yes you read that right. it's giving glow-up-for-your-files energy. 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

rdiff — compute and apply signature-based file differences 🌸

✨ SYNOPSYS ✨

(not me spelling it like that, it's how the page is, iykyk 🎀)

rdiff [options] signature old-file signature-file

rdiff [options] delta signature-file new-file delta-file

rdiff [options] patch old-file delta-file new-file

✨ USAGE ✨

ok so here's the vibe: you can use rdiff to update files, much like rsync does. BUT — and this is the main character moment — unlike rsync, rdiff puts you in control. 👑

there are three steps to updating a file: signature, delta, and patch. like a little three-act story. ⭐

1. use the signature subcommand to generate a small signature-file from the old-file
2. use the delta subcommand to generate a small delta-file from the signature-file to the new-file
3. use the patch subcommand to apply the delta-file to the old-file to regenerate the new-file

no cap, that's the whole flow. 🫶

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

in every case where a filename must be specified, - may be used instead to mean either standard input or standard output, as appropriate. 💫

⚠️ bestie, be aware: if you do this, you'll need to terminate your options with -- or rdiff will think you are passing it an empty option. 😭 don't get got by that one.

✨ RETURN VALUE ✨

here's the vibe check on exit codes, fr fr:

• 0 — for successful completion ✨ ate, no crumbs
• 1 — for environmental problems (file not found, invalid options, IO error, etc) 💀
• 2 — for a corrupt file 🚩
• 3 — for an internal error or unhandled situation in librsync or rdiff 🙈

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• librsync(3) — the icon, the blueprint, the blueprint icon 🌈

✨ AUTHOR ✨

Martin Pool <mbp@sourcefrog.net> 💜

the original rsync algorithm was discovered by Andrew Tridgell. lowkey a legend. 👑

rdiff development has been supported by Linuxcare, Inc and VA Linux Systems. shoutout to the patrons. 🎀

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this version is dated $Date$ and it belongs to the rdiff(1) manual — periodt. 💅✨