xdelta3 (1) - Linux Manuals

xdelta3: VCDIFF (RFC 3284) binary diff tool

NAME

xdelta3 - VCDIFF (RFC 3284) binary diff tool

SYNOPSIS

xdelta3 [command] [options] [input [output]]

DESCRIPTION

xdelta3 is a binary diff tool that uses the VCDIFF (RFC 3284) format and compression.

COMMANDS

config
prints xdelta3 configuration
decode
decompress the input, also set by -d
encode
compress the input, also set by -e (default)
test
run the builtin tests
printdelta
print information about the entire delta
printhdr
print information about the first window
printhdrs
print information about all windows
recode
encode with new application/secondary settings

OPTIONS

standard options:
-0 .. -9
compression level
-c
use stdout
-d
decompress
-e
compress
-f
force overwrite
-F
force the external-compression subprocess
-h
show help
-q
be quiet
-v
be verbose (max 2)
-V
show version

memory options:
-B
bytes source window size
-W
bytes input window size
-P
size compression duplicates window
-I
size instruction buffer size (0 = unlimited)

compression options:
-s
source source file to copy from (if any)
-S [djw|fgk]
enable/disable secondary compression
-N
disable small string-matching compression
-D
disable external decompression (encode/decode)
-R
disable external recompression (decode)
-n
disable checksum (encode/decode)
-C
soft config (encode, undocumented)
-A [apphead]
disable/provide application header (encode)
-J
disable output (check/compute only)
-T
use alternate code table (test)
-m
arguments for "merge"

NOTES

The XDELTA environment variable may contain extra args:

XDELTA="-s source-x.y.tar.gz" \
tar --use-compress-program=xdelta3 -cf \
target-x.z.tar.gz.vcdiff target-x.y/

EXAMPLES

Compress the differences between SOURCE and TARGET, yielding OUT, using "djw" secondary compression:

xdelta3 -S djw -s SOURCE TARGET OUT

Do the same, using standard input and output:

xdelta3 -S djw -s SOURCE < TARGET > OUT

To decompress OUT, using SOURCE, yielding TARGET:

xdelta3 -d -s SOURCE OUT TARGET

AUTHOR

xdelta3 was written by Josh MacDonald <josh.macdonald [at] gmail.com>.

This manual page was written by Leo 'costela' Antunes <costela [at] debian.org> for the Debian project (but may be used by others).