NAME

       tdcompare - compare two recordings of a terminal program

SYNOPSIS

       tdcompare [OPTIONS]... OLD NEW

DESCRIPTION

       tdcompare  compares  two  recordings  of  a terminal program to determine whether they represent the same
       output. The comparison can be both at the input/output level, or at the visual level. When  comparing  at
       the  input/output  level,  the  difference will be reported as line numbers in the OLD and NEW files. For
       visual comparisons, a textual description of the first difference can be produced, and a picture  of  the
       first different terminal state can be written (if termdebug was compiled with Cairo support).

       tdcompare  is  useful  to verify that a new recording of the same program produced the same result. To do
       on-line verification, use tdreplay(1) instead.

OPTIONS

       tdcompare accepts the following options:

       -h, --help
              Display a short help message.

       -V, --version
              Print version and copyright information.

       -v, --visual-compare
              Check for visual equality, rather than exact  input/output  behaviour.   (Requires  a  build  with
              ncurses support.)

       -D, --describe
              Write   a   description   of   the   first   visual   difference  encountered.  Only  useful  with
              -v/--visual-compare. (Requires a build with ncurses support.)

       -p name, --picture=name
              Write a picture of the difference to name. Only useful with -v/--visual-compare. (Requires a build
              with ncurses and Cairo support.)

       -f font, --font=font
              Use font to show text in generated pictures. Only useful with -p/--picture or -P/--picture-series.
              (Requires a build with ncurses and Cairo support.)

       -W width, --cell-width=width
              Use cells  of  width  pixels  wide  in  generated  pictures.  Only  useful  with  -p/--picture  or
              -P/--picture-series. (Requires a build with ncurses and Cairo support.)

       -H height, --cell-height=height
              Use  cells  of  height  pixels  wide  in  generated  pictures.  Only  useful  with -p/--picture or
              -P/--picture-series. (Requires a build with ncurses and Cairo support.)

       -P name, --picture-series=name
              Create a series of pictures, representing the different visual  steps  in  the  client  interface,
              using  name  as  the  file name template. name is a printf(3) format string, where a single d-type
              conversion is required.  (Requires a build with ncurses and Cairo support.)

       -s, --stop-on-difference
              Stop when the first visual difference is found. Only valid with -P/--picture-series.

       To stop tdcompare from interpreting file names that start with a dash  as  options,  one  can  specify  a
       double dash (--) after which tdreplay will interpret any following arguments as files to read.

BUGS

       If  you  think  you  have  found  a  bug, please check that you are using the latest version of termdebug
       <http://os.ghalkes.nl/termdebug>. When reporting bugs, please include a minimal example that demonstrates
       the problem.

AUTHOR

       G.P. Halkes <termdebug@ghalkes.nl>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2010,2012-2013 G.P. Halkes
       termdebug is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
       For more details on the license, see the file COPYING in the documentation  directory.  On  Un*x  systems
       this is usually /usr/share/doc/termdebug.

SEE ALSO

       termdebug(1), tdrecord(1), tdrerecord(1), tdview(1), tdreplay(1)

2.2                                                2013/03/03                                       TDCOMPARE(1)