# phpman > man > FLIPDIFF(1)

[FLIPDIFF(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/FLIPDIFF/1/markdown)                                   Man pages                                  [FLIPDIFF(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/FLIPDIFF/1/markdown)



## NAME
       flipdiff - exchange the order of two incremental patches

## SYNOPSIS
       **flipdiff** [[-p _n_] | [--strip-match=_n_]] [[-U _n_] | [--unified=_n_]] [[-d _PAT_] |
                [--drop-context=_PAT_]] [[-q] | [--quiet]] [[-z] | [--decompress]] [[-b] |
                [--ignore-space-change]] [[-B] | [--ignore-blank-lines]] [[-i] | [--ignore-case]]
                [[-w] | [--ignore-all-space]] [--in-place] _diff1_ _diff2_

       **flipdiff** {[--help] | [--version]}

## DESCRIPTION
       **flipdiff** exchanges the order of two patch files that apply one after the other. The patches
       must be “clean”: the context lines must match and there should be no mis-matched offsets.

       The swapped patches are sent to standard output, with a marker line
       (“=== 8< === cut here === 8< ===”) between them, unless the **--in-place** option is passed. In
       that case, the output is written back to the original input files.

## OPTIONS
### -p --strip-match=
           When comparing filenames, ignore the first _n_ pathname components from both patches. (This
           is similar to the **-p** option to GNU [**patch**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/patch/1/markdown).)

### -q --quiet
           Quieter output. Don't emit rationale lines at the beginning of each patch.

### -U --unified=
           Attempt to display _n_ lines of context (requires at least _n_ lines of context in both input
           files). (This is similar to the **-U** option to GNU [**diff**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/diff/1/markdown).)

### -d --drop-context=
           Don't display any context on files that match the shell wildcard _pattern_. This option can
           be given multiple times.

           Note that the interpretation of the shell wildcard pattern does not count slash
           characters or periods as special (in other words, no flags are given to **fnmatch**). This is
           so that “*/basename”-type patterns can be given without limiting the number of pathname
           components.

### -i --ignore-case
           Consider upper- and lower-case to be the same.

### -w --ignore-all-space
           Ignore whitespace changes in patches.

### -b --ignore-space-change
           Ignore changes in the amount of whitespace.

### -B --ignore-blank-lines
           Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.

### -z --decompress
           Decompress files with extensions .gz and .bz2.

### --in-place
           Write output to the original input files.

### --help
           Display a short usage message.

### --version
           Display the version number of flipdiff.

## LIMITATIONS
       This is only been very lightly tested, and may not even work. Using **--in-place** is not
       recommended at the moment.

       There are some cases in which it is not possible to meaningfully flip patches without
       understanding the semantics of the content. This program only uses complete lines that appear
       at some stage during the application of the two patches, and never composes a line from
       parts.

       Because of this, it is generally a good idea to read through the output to check that it
       makes sense.

## AUTHOR
       **Tim** **Waugh** <<twaugh@redhat.com>>
           Package maintainer



patchutils                                 23 January 2009                               [FLIPDIFF(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/FLIPDIFF/1/markdown)