DOKK / manpages / debian 12 / patchutils / patchview.1.en
PATCHVIEW(1) Man pages PATCHVIEW(1)

patchview - Without options, show numbered files modified by the patch. With options, behave as filterdiff.

patchview [[-n] | [--line-number]] [[-p n] | [--strip-match=n]] [--strip=n] [--addprefix=PREFIX] [[-s] | [--status]] [[-E] | [--empty-files-as-removed]] [[-i PATTERN] | [--include=PATTERN]] [[-x PATTERN] | [--exclude=PATTERN]] [[-z] | [--decompress]] [[-# RANGE] | [--hunks=RANGE]] [--lines=RANGE] [[-FRANGE] | [--files=RANGE]] [[-H] | [--with-filename]] [[-h] | [--no-filename]] [[-v] | [--verbose]...] [file...]

patchview {[--help] | [--version] | [--filter ...] | [--grep ...]}

So what is patchview? It is a wrapper of filterdiff for use with numbered files.

patchview

(without args) is equivalent to: lsdiff --number

patchview -F2-

(or with any other args) is equivalent to: filterdiff -F2- (or whatever arguments are supplied)

There are two scripts for working with git (gitdiff and gitdiffview) and two for svn (svndiff and svndiffview).

svndiff

gitdiff

(without args) will give the list of files modified

svndiff -F1

gitdiff -F1

will show the patch of file #1

svndiffview

gitdiffview

pipe all patches through filterdiff to vim - -R (in read-only mode, easy to quit), showing complete patch with color.

svndiffview -F2

gitdiffview -F2

(or any other args) will pipe patch of file #2 to vim - -R

-n, --line-number

Display the line number that each patch begins at. If verbose output is requested (using -nv), each hunk of each patch is listed as well.

For each file that is modified, a line is generated containing the line number of the beginning of the patch, followed by a Tab character, followed by the name of the file that is modified. If -v is given once, following each of these lines will be one line for each hunk, consisting of a Tab character, the line number that the hunk begins at, another Tab character, the string “Hunk #”, and the hunk number (starting at 1).

If the -v is given twice in conjunction with -n (i.e. -nvv), the format is slightly different: hunk-level descriptive text is shown after each hunk number, and the --number-files option is enabled.

-N, --number-files

File numbers are listed, beginning at 1, before each filename.

-# RANGE, --hunks=RANGE

Only list hunks within the specified RANGE. Hunks are numbered from 1, and the range is a comma-separated list of numbers or “first-last” spans, optionally preceded by a modifier 'x' which inverts the entire range; either the first or the last in the span may be omitted to indicate no limit in that direction.

--lines=RANGE

Only list hunks that contain lines from the original file that lie within the specified RANGE. Lines are numbered from 1, and the range is a comma-separated list of numbers or “first-last” spans, optionally preceded by a modifier 'x' which inverts the entire range; either the first or the last in the span may be omitted to indicate no limit in that direction.

-F=RANGE, --files=RANGE

Only list files indicated by the specified RANGE. Files are numbered from 1 in the order they appear in the patch input, and the range is a comma-separated list of numbers or “first-last” spans, optionally preceded by a modifier 'x' which inverts the entire range; either the first or the last in the span may be omitted to indicate no limit in that direction.

-p n, --strip-match=n

When matching, ignore the first n components of the pathname.

--strip=n

Remove the first n components of the pathname before displaying it.

--addprefix=PREFIX

Prefix the pathname with PREFIX before displaying it.

-s, --status

Show file additions, modifications and removals. A file addition is indicated by a “+”, a removal by a “-”, and a modification by a “!”.

-E, --empty-files-as-removed

Treat empty files as absent for the purpose of displaying file additions, modifications and removals.

-i PATTERN, --include=PATTERN

Include only files matching PATTERN.

-x PATTERN, --exclude=PATTERN

Exclude files matching PATTERN.

-z, --decompress

Decompress files with extensions .gz and .bz2.

-H, --with-filename

Print the name of the patch file containing each patch.

-h, --no-filename

Suppress the name of the patch file containing each patch.

-v, --verbose

Verbose output.

--help

Display a short usage message.

--version

Display the version number of patchview.

--filter

Behave like filterdiff(1) instead.

--grep

Behave like grepdiff(1) instead.

lsdiff(1),filterdiff(1), grepdiff(1)

We can make the following one-line script with the name difftotrunk.sh, to view the differences of two directories or svn repos (trunk and .)

diff ../trunk . -ru -x .svn | patchview "$@"

./difftotrunk.sh , will show all different files and his number.

./difftotrunk.sh -F3,4 , will show the differences of files #3 and #4 only.

./difftotrunk.sh -F3 -#1 , will show only hunk #1 of file #3.

./difftotrunk.sh -F3 -#x1 , will show the differences of files #3 without hunk #1 (x means that exclude).

Tim Waugh <twaugh@redhat.com>

Package maintainer
02 Jul 2020 patchutils