gap – simple native graphical text diff utility

gap is a graphical text comparison utility designed around a deliberately simple native interface.

Its presentation is inspired by the unified and split diff views commonly found on source-code hosting platforms, making changes easy to recognise without surrounding the comparison with a complete development environment. It can compare individual files as well as corresponding files within two directories. The project also serves as an implementation and demonstration of the linear-space variant of the Myers diff algorithm used by the developer’s fred editor.

This is free and open source software.

Key Features

• Displays text differences in a native graphical interface.
• Compares individual files or complete directory pairs.
• Matches corresponding files when performing directory comparisons.
• Offers both word-based and character-based highlighting within changed blocks.
• Lets you reverse the order of the two compared inputs with a single action.
• Provides expandable and collapsible context around changed sections.
• Can display an unlimited amount of surrounding context.
• Includes a configuration explorer for adjusting application behaviour and appearance.
• Lets users enable or disable line numbers.
• Provides configurable colours and animation settings.
• Includes a help panel with support for rebinding keyboard shortcuts.
• Supports subpixel font rendering.
• Accepts files through drag and drop onto either comparison pane.
• Accepts directories through the graphical directory-comparison view.
• Can be configured as a Git difftool for inspecting repository changes.
• Uses a largely self-contained codebase with few external build dependencies.

Website: github.com/cdacamar/gap
Support:
Developer: Cameron DaCamara
License: MIT License

gap is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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