> Please add the diff(1) program exit codes and their meanings to the > manual page.
The man page is generated from the --help output by help2man. The attached patch includes the exit status documentation in the help messages for diff, diff3, cmp and sdiff.
patch does not AFAIK have the same tri-state exit status logic so I didn't touch that.
The patch was generated against the Debian source for diffutils 2.8.1-12. ttfn/rjk
=== modified file 'src/cmp.c' --- src/cmp.c 2008-04-21 18:07:17 +0000 +++ src/cmp.c 2008-04-21 18:19:04 +0000 @@ -179,12 +179,14 @@ printf ("%s\n\n", _("Compare two files byte by byte.")); for (p = option_help_msgid; *p; p++) printf (" %s\n", _(*p)); - printf ("\n%s\n%s\n\n%s\n\n%s\n", + printf ("\n%s\n%s\n\n%s\n\n%s\n%s\n\n%s\n", _("SKIP1 and SKIP2 are the number of bytes to skip in each file."), _("SKIP values may be followed by the following multiplicative suffixes:\n\ kB 1000, K 1024, MB 1,000,000, M 1,048,576,\n\ GB 1,000,000,000, G 1,073,741,824, and so on for T, P, E, Z, Y."), _("If a FILE is `-' or missing, read standard input."), + _("An exit status of 0 means no differences were found, 1 means some"), + _("differences were found, and 2 means trouble."), _("Report bugs to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.")); } === modified file 'src/diff.c' --- src/diff.c 2008-04-21 18:07:17 +0000 +++ src/diff.c 2008-04-21 18:19:04 +0000 @@ -908,6 +908,9 @@ N_("If --from-file or --to-file is given, there are no restrictions on FILES."), N_("If a FILE is `-', read standard input."), "", + N_("An exit status of 0 means no differences were found, 1 means some"), + N_("differences were found, and 2 means trouble."), + "", N_("Report bugs to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>."), 0 }; === modified file 'src/diff3.c' --- src/diff3.c 2008-04-21 18:07:17 +0000 +++ src/diff3.c 2008-04-21 18:19:04 +0000 @@ -470,8 +470,10 @@ printf (" %s\n", _(*p)); else putchar ('\n'); - printf ("\n%s\n\n%s\n", + printf ("\n%s\n\n%s\n%s\n\n%s\n", _("If a FILE is `-', read standard input."), + _("An exit status of 0 means `diff3' was successful, 1 means some"), + _("conflicts were found, and 2 means trouble."), _("Report bugs to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.")); } === modified file 'src/sdiff.c' --- src/sdiff.c 2008-04-21 18:07:17 +0000 +++ src/sdiff.c 2008-04-21 18:19:04 +0000 @@ -218,8 +218,10 @@ printf (" %s\n", _(*p)); else putchar ('\n'); - printf ("\n%s\n\n%s\n", + printf ("\n%s\n\n%s\n%s\n\n%s\n", _("If a FILE is `-', read standard input."), + _("An exit status of 0 means no differences were found, 1 means some"), + _("differences were found, and 2 means trouble."), _("Report bugs to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.")); }