[bug-diffutils] Re: diff3 on binary files

[Jim Meyering]

address@hidden wrote:
> Is this the intended output?
> $ diff3 /bin/sh /bin/false /bin/mv
> diff3: subsidiary program `/usr/bin/diff' failed (exit status 2)
>
> Don't you want to just say "binary files a b and c differ"?
> diff3 (GNU diffutils) 2.8.7

[Cc'ing bug-diffutils, the preferred list for diff-related discussion]

Thanks for the report.
How about this, for now?

>From ef2251a3e5fa8bdf667cf38a9d9cbca38db1137b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jim Meyering <address@hidden>
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 08:32:06 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] doc: add to TODO

* TODO: Add an item, suggested by Dan Jacobson.
---
 TODO |    5 +++++
 1 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

diff --git a/TODO b/TODO
index 9488fea..f8dc34a 100644
--- a/TODO
+++ b/TODO
@@ -2,3 +2,8 @@ Add --include option (opposite of --exclude).

 Look into sdiff improvement here:
 http://www.pkix.net/~chuck/sdiff2.diff
+
+Propagate stderr from subprocess so that diff3 does
+a better job of explaining _why_:
+  > $ diff3 /bin/sh /bin/false /bin/mv
+  > diff3: subsidiary program `diff' failed (exit status 2)
--
1.6.6.556.gd6679