PTARDIFF(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PTARDIFF(1)

# [NAME](#NAME)

ptardiff - program that diffs an extracted archive against an unextracted one

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

```
    ptardiff is a small program that diffs an extracted archive
    against an unextracted one, using the perl module Archive::Tar.
    This effectively lets you view changes made to an archives contents.
    Provide the progam with an ARCHIVE_FILE and it will look up all
    the files with in the archive, scan the current working directory
    for a file with the name and diff it against the contents of the
    archive.
```

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

```
    ptardiff ARCHIVE_FILE
    ptardiff -h
    $ tar -xzf Acme-Buffy-1.3.tar.gz
    $ vi Acme-Buffy-1.3/README
    [...]
    $ ptardiff Acme-Buffy-1.3.tar.gz > README.patch
```

# [OPTIONS](#OPTIONS)

```
    h   Prints this help message
```

# [SEE ALSO](#SEE_ALSO)

[**tar**(1)](/man/os/perl/tar.1), Archive::Tar.

2026-10-26 perl v5.44.0

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Document: ptardiff(1) from perl 5.44.0-r3 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/Perl/perl5.git