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+Xdelta(1) Xdelta(1)
+
+NAME
+ xdelta - Invoke Xdelta
+
+SYNOPSIS
+ xdelta subcommand [ option... ] [ operand... ]
+
+DESCRIPTION
+
+ Xdelta provides the ability to generate deltas between a pair
+ of files and later apply those deltas. It operates similar to
+ the diff and patch commands, but works on binary files and does
+ not produce a human readable output.
+
+ Xdelta has three subcommands, delta, patch, and info. Delta
+ accepts two file versions and produces a delta, while patch
+ accepts the original file version and delta and produces the
+ second version. The info command prints useful information
+ about a delta. Each subcommand will be detailed seperately.
+
+ Gzip processing
+
+ Attempting to compute a delta between compressed input files
+ usually results in poor compression. This is because small
+ differences between the original contents causes changes in the
+ compression of whole blocks of data. To simplify things,
+ Xdelta implements a special case for gzip(1) compressed files.
+ If any version input to the delta command is recognized as
+ having gzip compression, it will be automatically decompressed
+ into a temporary location prior to comparison. This temporary
+ location is either the value of the TMPDIR environment
+ variable, if set, otherwise "/tmp".
+
+ The Xdelta patch header contains a flag indicating that the
+ reconstructed version should be recompressed after applying
+ the patch. In general, this allows Xdelta to operate
+ transparently on gzip compressed inputs.
+
+ There is one potential problem when automatically processing
+ gzip compressed files, which is that the recompressed content
+ does not always match byte-for-byte with the original
+ compressed content. The uncompressed content still matches,
+ but if there is an external integrity check such as
+ cryptographic signature verification, it may fail. To prevent
+ this from happening, the --pristine option disables automatic
+ gzip processing.
+
+ MD5 integrity check
+
+ By default, Xdelta always verifies the MD5 checksum of the
+ files it reconstructs. This prevents you from supplying an
+ incorrect input during patch, which would result in corrupt
+ output. Because of this feature, you can feel confident that
+ patch has produced valid results. The --noverify option
+ disables MD5 verification, but this is only recommended for
+ performance testing.
+
+ Compressed patch format
+
+ Xdelta uses a fairly simple encoding for its delta, then
+ applies zlib compression to the result. You should not have to
+ post-compress an Xdelta delta.
+
+ Delta
+
+ The delta subcommand has the following synopsis:
+
+ xdelta delta [ option... ] fromfile tofile patchout
+
+ Computes a delta from fromfile to tofile and writes it to patchout
+
+ Patch
+
+ The patch subcommand has the following synopsis:
+
+ xdelta patch [ option... ] patchin [ fromfile [ tofile ]]
+
+ Applies patchin to fromfile and produces a reconstructed
+ version of tofile.
+
+ If fromfile was omitted, Xdelta attempts to use the original
+ fromfile name, which is stored in the delta. The from file
+ must be identical to the one used to create the delta. If its
+ length or MD5 checksum differs, patch will abort with an error
+ message.
+
+ If tofile was omitted, Xdelta attempts to use the original
+ tofile name, which is also stored in the delta. If the
+ original tofile name already exists, a unique filename
+ extension will be added to avoid destroying any existing data.
+
+ Info
+ The info subcommand has the following synopsis:
+
+ xdelta info patchinfo
+
+ Prints information about patchinfo and the version it
+ reconstructs, including file names, lengths, and MD5 checksums.
+
+ Options
+ -0..9 Set the zlib compression level. Zero indicates no
+ compression. Nine indicates maximum compression.
+
+ -h, --help
+ Print a short help message and exit.
+
+ -q, --quiet
+ Quiet. Surpresses several warning messages.
+
+ -v, --version
+ Print the Xdelta version number and exit.
+
+ -V, --verbose
+ Verbose. Prints a bit of extra information.
+
+ -n, --noverify
+ No verify. Turns off MD5 checksum verification of the
+ input and output files.
+
+ -m=SIZE, --maxmem=SIZE
+ Set an upper bound on the size of an in-memory page
+ cache. For example, --maxmem=32M will use a 32 megabyte
+ page cache.
+
+ -s=BLOCK_SIZE
+ Set the block size, unless it was hard coded (20% speed
+ improvement). Should be a power of 2.
+
+ -p, --pristine
+ Disable the automatic decompression of gzipped
+ inputs, to prevent unexpected differences in the
+ re-compressed content.
+
+IDENTIFICATION
+ Author: Joshua P. MacDonald, jmacd@cs.berkeley.edu
+ Manual Page Revision: 1.2; Release Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 03:39:53 -0700.
+ Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001