Re: Bug diff 2.8.7: Separate dir

[Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha at cs dot nyu dot edu>]

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005, Arend-Jan Westhoff wrote:

> Thanks for the explanation. However I don't quite understand this is
> what one would want.

I'll let someone else address most of your points except one:

> It also seems inconsequent if what you say is truely correct and what is
> intended that when I use my file 'a' from my original example and do the
> following:
> 	copy a b
> that then:
> 	diff ./a .\b
> says that the files are completely different, whereas:
> 	diff ./a .\a
> says they are completely equal, while files a and b are character for
> character identical!

diff has an optimization that compares the arguments' inodes, and reports
identity for the files with the same inode.  No matter which slash you
use, they both resolve to the same file (only the metadata may be
different), so the inode is the same.  The inodes for "a" and "b" aren't
the same, so diff goes ahead and does the comparison (which reports the
differences in line endings).  Try "ln a c" and compare "a" with "c" using
your syntax. :-)
	Igor
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