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2.5 Making Edit Scripts

2.5 Making Edit Scripts

Several output modes produce command scripts for editing from-file to produce to-file.

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2.4.2 Detailed Description of Normal Format Next
2.5.1 ed Scripts

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This document is "GNU diffutils3.12 manual, Overview and complete chapters1–18" by David MacKenzie, Paul Eggert and Richard Stallman / Free Software Foundation, formatted for libx.

This unofficial Libx guide includes Overview and complete chapters1–18 of GNU diffutils3.12. Remaining chapters and indexes are supplied in the fixed complete English manual, Texinfo and Info originals.

Original copyright, permission, authors, History and the whole original English GFDL are retained below. There are no Invariant Sections or Cover Texts. Code, output and variable notation remain static text; heading self-link marks are replaced by shared navigation. No original diffutils program or examples are executed.

The original document revision is12January2025;release8April2025. Source fixed to original3.12 archive SHA256 5be181b27ec38aad2450080661a64e4a1752bb29b7d5052bf0a02a70f623f9b2. Site version date is acquisition6October2026, not the original document revision.

Chapters5–9 were added on7October2026. Existing Overview and Chapters1–4 retain their previous preferred text and modification history.

Chapter10 was added on7October2026. Existing Overview and Chapters1–9 retain their previous preferred text and modification history.

Chapters11–15 were added on7October2026. Existing Overview and Chapters1–10 retain their previous preferred text and modification history.

Chapters16–18 were added on7October2026. Existing Overview and Chapters1–15 retain their previous preferred text and modification history.

Source: GNU diffutils3.12 manual, Overview and complete chapters1–18
Upstream version: 3.12
License: GFDL1.3-or-later

Open original GFDL1.3-or-laterLicense Fixed complete original manual Unchanged original source archive Original editable Texinfo Original Info manual Editable source and rebuild kit Source and license notes

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Libx GNU diffutils 3.12 Comparison and Output Formats — Overview and Chapters 1–4 / Libx GNU diffutils 3.12 比較と出力書式 — 概要・第1〜4章

Original authors: David MacKenzie, Paul Eggert and Richard Stallman Original publisher: Free Software Foundation. Modification author and publisher: Libx.

This manual is for GNU Diffutils (version 3.12, 12 January 2025), and documents the GNU diff, diff3, sdiff, and cmp commands for showing the differences between files and the GNU patch command for using their output to update files.

Copyright © 1992–1994, 1998, 2001–2002, 2004, 2006, 2009–2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License.”

Copyright © 2026 Libx, for editing and independent Japanese translation. This modified guide is available under GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 or later, with no Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts, or Back-Cover Texts. No new cover texts or invariant sections have been added.

History / 履歴

Original: GNU Diffutils: Comparing and Merging Files; version3.12; updated12January2025; author David MacKenzie, Paul Eggert and Richard Stallman; publisher Free Software Foundation. Source: diffutils-3.12.tar.gz, SHA256 5be181b27ec38aad2450080661a64e4a1752bb29b7d5052bf0a02a70f623f9b2.

2026: Libx GNU diffutils3.12 Comparison and Output Formats — Overview and Chapters1–4 / Libx GNU diffutils3.12 比較と出力書式 — 概要・第1〜4章. Modification author and publisher: Libx. Static chapter-scoped HTML in editable Markdown and unofficial Japanese translation. Original copyright, permission and whole English license preserved. Modified6October2026.

Original English GNU Free Documentation License / 原英語GFDL全文

Appendix A Copying This Manual ¶

Version 1.3, 3 November 2008

Copyright © 2000–2002, 2007–2008, 2022–2025 Free Software
Foundation, Inc.
https://fsf.org/

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

PREAMBLE
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document free in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.

This License is a kind of “copyleft”, which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.

We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
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Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple HTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human modification. Examples of transparent image formats include PNG, XCF and JPG. Opaque formats include proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF produced by some word processors for output purposes only.

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If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.

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2. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement.
3. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.
4. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
5. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.
6. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.
7. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document’s license notice.
8. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
9. Preserve the section Entitled “History”, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled “History” in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.
10. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the “History” section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.
11. For any section Entitled “Acknowledgements” or “Dedications”, Preserve the Title of the section, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.
12. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
13. Delete any section Entitled “Endorsements”. Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.
14. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled “Endorsements” or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.
15. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version’s license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.

You may add a section Entitled “Endorsements”, provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties—for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.

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COMBINING DOCUMENTS
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In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled “History” in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled “History”; likewise combine any sections Entitled “Acknowledgements”, and any sections Entitled “Dedications”. You must delete all sections Entitled “Endorsements.”
COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
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AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
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If a section in the Document is Entitled “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, or “History”, the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title.
TERMINATION
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FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
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“Incorporate” means to publish or republish a Document, in whole or in part, as part of another Document.

An MMC is “eligible for relicensing” if it is licensed under this License, and if all works that were first published under this License somewhere other than this MMC, and subsequently incorporated in whole or in part into the MMC, (1) had no cover texts or invariant sections, and (2) were thus incorporated prior to November 1, 2008.

The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing.

ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents ¶

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:

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If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the “with…Texts.” line with this:

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If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.

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2.5 Making Edit Scripts