Issued:
2013-01-07
Updated:
2013-01-07

RHBA-2013:0036 - diffutils bug fix update

Synopsis

diffutils bug fix update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory (none)

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

ProductVersionArch
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian5ppc
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems5s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation5i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server5ia64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server5i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI5i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop5x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop5i386

Updated Packages

  • diffutils-2.8.1-16.el5.x86_64.rpm
  • diffutils-debuginfo-2.8.1-16.el5.s390x.rpm
  • diffutils-2.8.1-16.el5.s390x.rpm
  • diffutils-2.8.1-16.el5.src.rpm
  • diffutils-debuginfo-2.8.1-16.el5.ia64.rpm
  • diffutils-2.8.1-16.el5.ppc.rpm
  • diffutils-debuginfo-2.8.1-16.el5.i386.rpm
  • diffutils-2.8.1-16.el5.ia64.rpm
  • diffutils-debuginfo-2.8.1-16.el5.ppc.rpm
  • diffutils-2.8.1-16.el5.i386.rpm
  • diffutils-debuginfo-2.8.1-16.el5.x86_64.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information