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Article #1374

bogus error messages from diff -r

#1374
From: Bill Sommerfeld
Date: Mon, 03 Oct 1988 22:34
33 lines
1174 bytes
Here's a test shell script:

#! /bin/sh 
diff=${1-/bin/diff}
mkdir /tmp/diffa
mkdir /tmp/diffb
mkdir /tmp/diffa/one
cp /dev/null /tmp/diffb/one
echo forwards:
$diff -r /tmp/diffa /tmp/diffb
echo backwards:
$diff -r /tmp/diffb /tmp/diffa
rm -rf /tmp/diffa /tmp/diffb

When I run it with GNU diff, I get the following garbled error
message:

% /tmp/test ./diff
forwards:
./diff: %s is a directory but %s is not /tmp/diffa/one
backwards:
./diff: %s is a directory but %s is not /tmp/diffa/one

The UNIX diff prints the following less-garbled but less-correct error
message:

% /tmp/test /bin/diff
forwards:
Binary files /tmp/diffa/one and /tmp/diffb/one differ
backwards:
Binary files /tmp/diffb/one and /tmp/diffa/one differ

					- Bill
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Message-ID: <8810032234.AA00879@ANUBIS.MIT.EDU>
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!uunet!bu-cs!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ATHENA.MIT.EDU!wesommer

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!uunet!bu-cs!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ATHENA.MIT.EDU!wesommer
From: wesommer@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Sommerfeld)
Newsgroups: gnu.utils.bug
Subject: bogus error messages from diff -r
Message-ID: <8810032234.AA00879@ANUBIS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 3 Oct 88 22:34:01 GMT
Sender: daemon@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Distribution: gnu
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
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