Chapter 2. Documentation of File Comparison And Merge

Command-Line Options

Comparing 2 files:

   kdiff3 file1 file2

Merging 2 files:

   kdiff3 file1 file2 -m
   kdiff3 file1 file2 -o outputfile

Comparing 3 files:

   kdiff3 file1 file2 file3

Merging 3 files:

   kdiff3 file1 file2 file3 -m
   kdiff3 file1 file2 file3 -o outputfile

Note that file1 will be treated as base of file2 and file3.

Special case: Files with the same name

If all files have the same name but are in different directories, you can reduce typework by specifying the filename only for the first file. E.g.:

   kdiff3 dir1/filename dir2 dir3

Commandline for starting a directory comparison or merge:

This is very similar, but now it's about directories.

   kdiff3 dir1 dir2
   kdiff3 dir1 dir2 -o destdir
   kdiff3 dir1 dir2 dir3
   kdiff3 dir1 dir2 dir3 -o destdir

For directory comparison and merge you can continue to read here.

For more information on command line options use:

   kdiff3 --help