The KDiff3 Handbook

Joachim Eibl <joachim.eibl at gmx.de>

Revision 0.9.84 (2004-05-29)

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

KDiff3 is a file and directory diff and merge tool which

  • compares and merges two or three text input files or directories,

  • shows the differences line by line and character by character(!),

  • provides an automatic merge-facility,

  • has an editor for comfortable solving of merge-conflicts,

  • provides networktransparency via KIO,

  • has options to highlight or hide changes in white-space or comments.

This document describes KDiff3-version 0.9.84.


Table of Contents

1. Introduction
Yet Another Diff Frontend?
Screenshots and Features
More Features
Line-By-Line And Char-By-Char Diff-Viewer
See White-Space Differences At One Glance
Triple-Diff
Comfortable Merge Of Two Or Three Input Files
And ...
2. Documentation of File Comparison And Merge
Command-Line Options
Comparing 2 files:
Merging 2 files:
Comparing 3 files:
Merging 3 files:
Special case: Files with the same name
Commandline for starting a directory comparison or merge:
For more information on command line options use:
Open-Dialog
Paste and Drop Input
Interpreting The Information In The Input Windows
Merging And The Merge Output Editor Window
Navigation And Editing
Select, Copy And Paste
Saving
Finding Strings
Options
Font
Colors
Editor Settings
Diff & Merge Settings
Directory Merge
Miscellaneous
Configuring Keyboard-Shortcuts
Preprocessor Commands
sed Basics
Examples For sed-Use In KDiff3
Order Of Preprocessor Execution
Warning
3. Directory Comparison and Merge with KDiff3
Introduction
Starting Directory Comparison Or Merge
Compare/Merge two directories:
Compare/Merge three directories:
Visible Information
The Name Column
The Columns A/B/C and the Coloring Scheme
The Operation Column
The Status Column
Statistics Columns
Doing A Merge
Options for Comparing and Merging Directories
Other Functions
Split/Full Screen Mode
Comparing or Merging a Single File
4. Miscellaneous Topics
Networktransparency via KIO
KIO-Slaves
How To Write URLs
Capabilities of KIO-Slaves
Using KDiff3 as a KPart
5. Questions and Answers
6. Credits and License
A. Installation
How to obtain KDiff3
Requirements
Compilation and Installation