Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 01:26:34 -0800 (GMT)
From: "Rafael R. Sevilla" <rsevilla AT upd DOT edu DOT ph>
To: cyfheng AT singnet DOT com DOT sg, DJGPP newsgroup mail <djgpp AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: RCS5.7 DOS and Binary Files
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960413004922.21252A-100000@sauron>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Diff aside, take note that the RCS documentation specifically states that
it can't be used to manage revisions for binary files. It doesn't matter
whether diff can work with binary files or not--RCS simply wasn't designed
for binary file version control. RCS uses the -e switch of diff which
outputs the editor commands (editor meaning the old Unix line editors ed
and ex) that are necessary in order to transform one file into the other,
and these commands are what is stored in the RCS deltas. Obviously this
model breaks down for binary files, as there are no coherent lines in
them, and they output all sorts of strange characters which are inter-
preted in odd ways by text files, such as the EOF diff complains about.
Whether your version of diff can work with binary files or not, diff -e
will *only* work on text files, for that obvious reason. Try it yourself, 
with a command like diff -e file1.bin file2.bin. It will probably give 
the same error that ci gives you.

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University of the Philippines                           Rafael R. Sevilla
PABX/OVCA: Diliman Networking Project          rsevilla AT sauron DOT upd DOT edu DOT ph
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