Re: diffutils 2.8: newlines not ignored under -w

[Paul Eggert]

> From: address@hidden (Karl Berry)
> CC: address@hidden
> Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 13:06:45 -0500
> 
> In diffutils 2.8 (tried both solaris 2.7 and gnu/linux), diff -w does
> not ignore newlines, although the manual (node White Space) says it
> should:

Thanks, I think that's a bug in the manual.  The current behavior is
longstanding practice, and Solaris 8 /usr/bin/diff also does not
ignore newlines.  You can get some of the effect that you want with
-wB.

I'll install something like the following patch into the manual.


@@ -305,8 +298,8 @@
 @end example
 
 The @option{-w} and @option{--ignore-all-space} options are stronger still.
-They ignore difference even if one file has white space where
-the other file has none.  @dfn{White space} characters include
+They ignore difference even if one line has white space where
+the other line has none.  @dfn{White space} characters include
 tab, newline, vertical tab, form feed, carriage return, and space;
 some locales may define additional characters to be white space.
 With these options, @command{diff} considers the