Ediff can be invoked interactively using the following functions, which can be run either from the minibuffer or from the menu bar. In the menu bar, all Ediff's entry points belong to three submenus of the Tools menu: Compare, Merge, and Apply Patch.
ediff-files
ediff
ediff-buffers
ediff-files3
ediff3
ediff-buffers3
edirs
ediff-directories
edirs3
ediff-directories3
edir-revisions
ediff-directory-revisions
edir-merge-revisions
ediff-merge-directory-revisions
edir-merge-revisions-with-ancestor
ediff-merge-directory-revisions-with-ancestor
ediff-windows-wordwise
ediff-windows-linewise
ediff-regions-wordwise
ediff-regions-linewise
ediff-revision
ediff-patch-file
epatch
ediff-patch-buffer
epatch-buffer
ediff-merge-files
ediff-merge
ediff-merge-files-with-ancestor
ediff-merge-with-ancestor
ediff-merge
, but with a third ancestor file.
ediff-merge-buffers
ediff-merge-buffers-with-ancestor
edirs-merge
ediff-merge-directories
edirs-merge-with-ancestor
ediff-merge-directories-with-ancestor
ediff-merge-revisions
ediff-merge-revisions-with-ancestor
If you want Ediff to be loaded from the very beginning of your Emacs session, you should put this line in your `~/.emacs' file:
(require 'ediff)
Otherwise, Ediff will be loaded automatically when you use one of the above functions, either directly or through the menus.
When the above functions are invoked, they prompt the user for the
information they need--typically the files or buffers to compare or
patch. Ediff tries to be smart about these prompts. For instance, in
comparing/merging files, it will offer the visible buffers as defaults. In
prompting for files, if the user enters a directory, the previously input
file name will be appended to that directory. In addition, if the variable
ediff-use-last-dir
is not nil
, Ediff will offer
previously entered directories as defaults (which will be maintained
separately for each type of file, A, B, or C).
All the above functions use the POSIX diff
program to find
differences between two files. They process the diff
output and
display it in a convenient form. At present, Ediff understands only the
plain output from diff. Options such as `-c' are not supported,
nor is the format produced by incompatible file comparison programs such
as the VMS version of diff
.
The functions ediff-files
, ediff-buffers
,
ediff-files3
, ediff-buffers3
first display the coarse,
line-based difference regions, as reported by the `diff' program.
Since diff may report fairly large chunks of text as being different,
even though the difference may be localized to just a few words or even
to the white space or line breaks, Ediff further refines the
regions to indicate which exact words differ. If the only difference is
in the white space and line breaks, Ediff says so.
On a color display, fine differences are highlighted with color; on a monochrome display, they are underlined. See section Highlighting Difference Regions, for information on how to customize this.
The functions ediff-windows-wordwise
,
ediff-windows-linewise
, ediff-regions-wordwise
and
ediff-regions-linewise
do comparison on parts of existing Emacs
buffers. Since ediff-windows-wordwise
and
ediff-regions-wordwise
are intended for relatively small segments
of buffers, comparison is done on the basis of words rather than lines.
No refinement is necessary in this case. These commands are recommended
only for relatively small regions (perhaps, up to 100 lines), because
these functions have a relatively slow startup.
To compare large regions, use ediff-regions-linewise
. This
command displays differences much like ediff-files
and
ediff-buffers
.
The functions ediff-patch-file
and ediff-patch-buffer
apply a
patch to a file or a buffer and then run Ediff on these buffers, displaying
the difference regions.
The entry points ediff-directories
, ediff-merge-directories
,
etc., provide a convenient interface for comparing and merging files in
different directories. The user is presented with Dired-like interface from
which one can run a group of related Ediff sessions.
For files under version control, ediff-revisions
lets you compare
the file visited by the current buffer to one of its checked-in versions.
You can also compare two checked-in versions of the visited file.
Moreover, the functions ediff-directory-revisions
,
ediff-merge-directory-revisions
, etc., let you run a group of
related Ediff sessions by taking a directory and comparing (or merging)
versions of files in that directory.
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