Re: diff: suboptimal behaviour with errors

[Thomas Schwinge]

On Thu, Mar 18, 2004 at 11:26:11AM -0800, Paul Eggert wrote:
> Thomas Schwinge <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > IMHO all these three should have different return values.
> 
> Something like that might be reasonable, but what sort of return
> values do you think would be appropriate, exactly?  That is, can you
> take a look at the latest diff source code, find every instance of
> returning 2 from diff, cmp, sdiff, etc., and describe what value you
> think should be returned instead?  It has to be an integer greater
> than or equal to 2, preferably a small number.

I'll have a look at this.
Where can I find the latest development version?
Is it this one, dated 06/28/02?
<URL:ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/diffutils/diffutils-2.8.4.tar.gz>
<URL:http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/diffutils/> does not seem to be
populated.

> I worry a bit that adding to much detail here will just confuse the
> user, and that it might be simpler to just stick with 2.

Using diff in a script (mirroring websites) to show me the differences
between the last run and the latest version I _do_ care if it exited '2'
because of a binary file changed or if it exited '2' because of e.g. it
didn't have sufficient memory to complete the diff.


Regards,
 Thomas