General developer forum

Hello All!

I am trying to read and interpret a "diff" file so I can directly make changes to some files without using SSH.  Also, I want to have a clear idea of where and what changes are to be made before automatically making them in the file without studying things first.  If someone could help me with this, it would surely be appreciated. 

Once I understand more of what is going on with this "diff" file I will then attempt to apply it to one of my "play" sites.

1. What do the following statesments mean?
RCS file: /cvsroot/moodle/course/edit.html,v
retrieving revision 1.1
retrieving revision 1.2

2. How is the following statement interpreted?
diff -u -r1.1 -r1.2

3. How is the following statement interpreted?
--- course/edit.html    24 Mar 2004 02:32:04 -0000    1.1
+++ course/edit.html    24 Mar 2004 21:30:13 -0000    1.2

4. What do the "-" and "+" at the beginning of lines indicate?

5. If a line does not have a "-" and "+" at the beginning, what does that mean?

Below is part of a "diff" file I am using as an example for the questions above.

Thanks in advance to anyone who responds to these questions.

WP1

EXAMPLE

Index: course/edit.html
==================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/moodle/course/edit.html,v
retrieving revision 1.1
retrieving revision 1.2
diff -u -r1.1 -r1.2
--- course/edit.html    24 Mar 2004 02:32:04 -0000    1.1
+++ course/edit.html    24 Mar 2004 21:30:13 -0000    1.2
@@ -44,6 +44,12 @@
     </td>
 </tr>
 <tr valign=top>
+    <td align="right"><P><?php  print_string("price") ?>:</td>
+    <td><input type="text" name="price" maxlength="15"  size="15" value="<?php  p($form->price) ?>">
+    <?php  if (isset($err["price"])) formerr($err["price"]); ?>
+    </td>
+</tr>
+<tr valign=top>
     <td align="right"><P><?php  print_string("format") ?>:</td>
     <td><?php 
            choose_from_menu ($form->courseformats, "format", "$form->format", "");