--05/09/2004--
diffball is a general purpose delta compression/binary differencing suite. As of 0.4, it currently supports the follow formats
----FORMATS-----
Format Read	Encode	Conversion
bdiff yes	yes	yes
bdelta yes	yes	yes, as of bdelta-0.1 (1)
bsdiff3 yes	no	no- untested read support.
bsdiff4 yes	no	no (2)
fdtu yes	no	yes (3)
gdiff v4	yes	yes	yes
gdiff v4 (tweaked, using relative offset addresses) yes	yes	yes (4)
switching	yes	yes	yes
unified diff	yes*	no	beta, but yes. Normally disabled.
only non-recursive patches. It needs finishing...
xdelta-1.1.0	yes	no	yes
(1) bdelta is a subproject of deltup, which has gone the way of the dodo.
deltup was originally intended as src patching solution for gentoo, so there are a few users still using it. That said, I'm currently working on src patching, and will be removing deltup from the gentoo tree.
What this means, is that deltup isn't likely to get any updates anytime soon, let alone bdelta which was a side project of deltup.
Interesting format purely due to it's compressability, aside from that, this format will live on in diffball as long as it's minimal to support it.
(2) The code for conversion has been written already for both versions. I've not added a necessary option to convert_delta to pass in the reference file- bdelta is an overlay format, meaning it's add commands *need* the reference
file to work, requiring an extra command line option to convert_delta.
Adding this is trivial, so if you want it, either email me, or submit a patch that uses the popt interface I've so far based all options upon.
(3) fdtu isn't anything to write home about, it's a wrapped xdelta format w/ redundant information. It's related to (1) above, a byproduct of deltup.
I don't like this format, and intend to remove it once deltup is completely gone.
Frankly I don't like the fact that it *is* xdelta's output, just with a format header/footer appended on that adds no value, aside from obscuring the fact that the actual differencing is done by xdelta.
That said, if you want it/need it left in, you're going to have to contact me regarding it. It'll live through the 0.4* releases, but I intend to remove it as soon as it won't affect users (considering it can undergo conversion, it may not even be supported/included past 0.4).
(4) This is completely non-standard, and pretty much a minor tweak I did to the gdiff4 format. Gdiff4 in it's original rfc incarnation specifies all offsets absolute, rather then relative to the last copy position. This uses relative addressing, providing a modest (although not trivial) space saving.
Modification of apps that support gdiff4 to support this tweak ought to be minor, contact me if you need a hand or have questions.
I'm tempted to submit this as an rfc, although I would think it might be overruled in preference for vcdiff (the basics of vcdiff I intend to add at a
later date).
----BINARIES----
differ general purpose differencing program, diffball specific implementation for processing tarball's- usually this
results in a smaller delta then differ, w/ a better run-time.
Differ does pull ahead for tarballs in a few oddball cases, notably the evolution src tarballs.
patcher reconstruction program, if a format has read support patcher can reconstruct the target file.
convert_delta	program for converting between formats, if write support is supported for the target format, and read support for the source, it can convert between the two producing a correct patch.
--DEPENDENCIES--
bzip2-1.* if you need bzip2-0.9.* support, iirc there was a lib interface change from what I can recall, it's minor, handled fairly easily by a few macro tricks. If you need bzip2-0.9.* support, email me, and I'll add it.
zlib-1.1.* I've done my testing/compilation against zlib-1.1.4. That said, I would suspect compiling against anything zlib-1.* wouldn't be an issue, but don't quote me on that.
Again, if you experience compilation problems, email the author.
I'm more then willing to check into supporting older versions of zlib, just need to be told that somebody actually wants this. :)
popt-1.7 I've not tested against anything prior to 1.7. Contact me if you have issues, and I'll see what I can do.
-----SETUP------
First off, make sure you have the dependencies met. They're minor, but currently you need all of them met- down the line, I'll likely make zlib/bzip2 a compile time option. That said, it isn't configurable as of 0.4
To configure and install diffball, first run the 'configure' script which will create a makefile along w/ a config.h appropriate to your configuration choicse, and your system. From there, just type "make".
Any compilation issues that come up, please contact me with the make failure, dependency versions, OS, (eg debian, gentoo, rh, OSX 10.x), and be willing to answer a few questions so I can fix the problem. :)
---COPYRIGHT----
The diffball suite is releaed under the BSD 3 clause; as of the time of this
writing, all copyright is copyright Brian Harring- the project however does not
require centralized copyright assignment for any patches.
For exact terms of BSD 3 clause, please see the COPYING file.
--AVAILABILITY--
For the foreseeable future diffball will be hosted git://pkgore.org/diffball
-----AUTHOR-----
Diffball was written, and is maintained by Brian Harring.
If you need to contact me, my email address is ferringb@gmail.com
Any weirdness, suggestions, or complaints kindly contact me and
I'll see what I can do to make it better.