diffutils: Blank Lines
1.3 Suppressing Differences Whose Lines Are All Blank
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The '--ignore-blank-lines' ('-B') option ignores changes that consist
entirely of blank lines. With this option, for example, a file
containing
1. A point is that which has no part.
2. A line is breadthless length.
-- Euclid, The Elements, I
is considered identical to a file containing
1. A point is that which has no part.
2. A line is breadthless length.
-- Euclid, The Elements, I
Normally this option affects only lines that are completely empty,
but if you also specify an option that ignores trailing spaces, lines
are also affected if they look empty but contain white space. In other
words, '-B' is equivalent to '-I '^$'' by default, but it is equivalent
to '-I '^[[:space:]]*$'' if '-b', '-w' or '-Z' is also specified.
Info Catalog
diffutils: White Space
diffutils: Comparison
diffutils: Specified Lines