[9fans] diff problem

[rudolf.sykora@gmail.com (Rudolf Sykora)]

On 29 March 2011 18:45, erik quanstrom <quanstro at labs.coraid.com> wrote:
> your problem is that you have a line that exceeds diff's line-length limits
> of 4096 characters:
>
> 6: ?!cat /mail/fs/mbox/323/3/body.txt|awk 'length($0)>4096 {print NR " " length($0)}'
> 33 4122
>
> - erik

aha. thanks!

But how is it? Does the linux's diff also have some limit, only
higher, or can it adapt to any line lenght?

Also, having bumped into problem like this, I guess I have to
recompile. But how can I know which parameters to change?
Quickly going through the (now plan9; not p9p) source I see several
numbers scattered in the files:

#define BUF 4096 in diffreg.c
#define MAXPATHLEN	1024 in diff.h
#define MAXLINELEN	4096 in diffio.c
#define HALFLONG 16

So I guess I must change BUF and MAXLINELEN. But shouldn't these
defines be ideally at one place?; also they have no comments... :(
Wouldn't it be nice to have the limits mentioned (automatically, say
during compilation process) in the man page? Or, would it be difficult
to get rid of any such limits?

Thanks
Ruda