diffr is a terminal filter that makes unified diff output more precise by identifying changes within individual lines. This is particularly helpful with long or similar lines where a conventional line-oriented comparison shows that a line changed without making the exact edit immediately obvious.
The program works one hunk at a time and performs an additional word-level comparison using a longest-common-subsequence algorithm. It follows the Unix filter model, reading diff data from standard input and writing the refined result to standard output.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Adds word-level refinement to ordinary unified diff output.
- Keeps the underlying unified diff structure while adding terminal text attributes to changed regions.
- Processes comparisons hunk by hunk rather than requiring the complete diff to be reformatted into a proprietary representation.
- Uses Myers’ longest-common-subsequence algorithm when refining changed content.
- Handles UTF-8 text while keeping grapheme clusters together during tokenisation.
- Supports configurable colours for changed, added, removed and common text segments.
- Can use dimmed text attributes to reduce visual emphasis on unchanged content.
- Offers optional line numbers for diff hunks.
- Reads from standard input and writes to standard output, making it easy to combine with other command-line tools.
- Works directly with output from commands such as git show.
- Can be configured as Git’s pager.
- Can also be configured as Git’s interactive diff filter.
- Does not replace the underlying diff calculation, allowing users to retain their existing Git and diff workflows.
Website: github.com/mookid/diffr
Support:
Developer: Nathan Moreau
License: MIT License
diffr is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Terminal-Based Diff Tools | |
|---|---|
| difftastic | Structural diff tool that compares files based on their syntax |
| hunk | Terminal diff viewer with syntax highlighting and side-by-side views |
| diff-so-fancy | Attractive diffs with diff-highlight and more |
| delta | Viewer for git and diff output |
| icdiff | An improved colored diff |
| diffoscope | In-depth comparison of files, archives, and directories |
| colordiff | Wrapper for diff with pretty syntax highlighting |
| diffsitter | Semantic diff tool |
| objdiff | Local diffing tool for decompilation project |
| ydiff | Tool to view colored, incremental diff in a version controlled workspace |
| diffr | Word-by-word diff highlighting utility |
| dyff | diff tool for YAML files |
| Wdiff | Wordwise implementation of diff |
| dwdiff | diff program that operates at the word level |
| diffyml | Compares YAML documents by their structure |
| oyo | Step-through diff viewer |
| diff2html-cli | Generate HTML diffs |
| biodiff | Terminal-based binary diff viewer |
| dirdiff | Compute the differences between two directories |
| csvdiff | Fast diff tool for comparing CSV files |
| VBinDiff | Visual binary diff |
| riff | Wrapper around diff |
| csv-diff | Diffing CSV and JSON files |
| xmldiff | Compare XML documents |
| Patdiff | File diff using the Patience Diff algorithm |
| dead-ringer | Binary diff utility |
| sesdiff | Generates a shortest edit script |
| semdiff | Semantic diff tool written in Rust |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| Git Tools for Diff Review and Repository History | |
|---|---|
| difftastic | Structural diff tool that compares files based on their syntax |
| git-filter-repo | Quickly rewrite git repository history |
| onefetch | Displays information about a local Git repository |
| git-stats | Local git statistics including GitHub-like contributions calendars |
| diff-so-fancy | Attractive diffs with diff-highlight and more |
| BFG Repo-Cleaner | Clean unwanted data from Git repository history |
| git-delta | Viewer for git and diff output |
| gitlogue | Cinematic Git commit replay tool |
| git-quick-stats | Access various statistics in a git repository |
| git-who | Command-line Git analysis tool |
| git-standup | Recall what you did on the last working day |
| git-of-theseus | Analyze how a Git repo grows over time |
| git-sizer | Compute various size metrics for a git repository |
| diffnav | Git diff pager based on delta but with a file tree, à la GitHub |
| critique | Terminal UI for reviewing git diffs |
| git-big-picture | Visualization tool for Git repositories |
| hercules | Gain advanced insights from Git repository history |
| keifu | TUI that visualizes Git commit graphs |
| git-fame | Git repository collaborators sorted by contributions |
| needle | Highlights GitHub PRs |
| mergiraf | Git merge driver |
| git-history | Analyze Git history using SQLite |
| ec | Terminal Git mergetool |
| diffr | Word-by-word diff highlighting utility |
| git-scope | Fast TUI dashboard to view the git status of all your repositories |
| mamediff | Manages unstaged and staged Git diffs |
| deadbranch | Keep Git repositories tidy |
| GitTop | Lightweight desktop client for GitHub notifications |
| git-heatmap | Generates a customizable heatmap |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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