RHBA-2013:0036 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated diffutils packages that fix two bugs are now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5.

Description

The diffutils package contains utilities for comparing text files. These
utilities include diff, cmp, diff3, and sdiff.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Prior to this update, the "-E" option of the sdiff command was not accepted

and returned the following error message:

sdiff: invalid option -- E
sdiff: Try `sdiff --help' for more information.

This was because the "-E" option was accidentally omitted from the list of
accepted options. This update fixes this bug, and the "-E" option works as
expected. (BZ#484892)

• When using the cmp command's "-s" option to compare files, incorrect results

were returned for special files whose metadata is not accurate, for example
files in the proc file system. This update fixes this bug by always reading the
content of files whose length is reported as zero bytes. (BZ#563618)

All users of diffutils are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which
fix these bugs.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously-released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to
use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 484892 - sdiff does not recognize -E option
• BZ - 563618 - cmp -s returns 1 even if files are identical

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)