Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:28, 5 July 2006

Diff3

Another contributor and myself are unsure whether some of the information on diff3 is accurate. Specifically, we do not fully agree (for lack of knowledge, rather than conflicting knowledge) on the evolution of diff3, its current relevance to users, and its technical relationship to the merge utitlity. Any contributions and corrections (with references, please!) are welcomed. (However, having just looked at the GNU diff3 source, I have to say that it's such a simple-minded program that I doubt it's worthy of further analysis).

Diff Feature Comparison

This feature comparison matrix in its current existence looks really superficial. It's a good idea, but I don't think very many software articles on WikiPedia serve as running software reviews of different packages. Most of these diff applications are graphical interfaces anyway.

Diff on Misplaced Pages

Anyone know what diff program Misplaced Pages uses for its page histories, which shows the spefic location in a line where text begins to differ, or what such a program would be called? This seems to be slightly different from the UNIX program which only shows differing lines but not where in the line it differs.

Misplaced Pages currently doesn't use diff at all, the history functionality is being done by MediaWiki and is code written in PHP. I imagine this includes the functionality showing results on a word-by-word basis --132.198.104.111 17:38, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

So is there any piece of software that does this thing for files? -- 193.226.167.123 17:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

If any of my reverted edits were allowed to remain or if my merge proposal wasn't voted down, this discussion might not be necessary.

Misplaced Pages uses a file comparison utility that works when you click "diff." It might not be the Unix diff program though. File comparison utilities that might do what you want are listed in various sections at the bottom of this article, and on the bottom of the file comparison page. One of the links at Help:Contents might lead you to more information.

Usability is dead. -Barry- 18:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I just found something that looks somewhat promising (the external link at Help:Diff in the "Tracking changes" section). -- 193.226.167.123 19:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

In Unix land there's something called Wdiff. --65.19.87.53 01:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Layman's Terms

Could some one explain this in layman's terms?

The diff algorithm is an implementation of the Longest-common subsequence problem, which is now linked to in Diff's "See also" section.

I've added an example for clarity. I don't say it's a good (or realistic) example, but it will do for now. Without an example it's not clear what a diff really is, or looks like. --Shinobu 18:14, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Binary v. Text Sentence in Intro

Apart from that, shouldn't "The first editions of the program were designed for line comparisons in text files. By the 1980s, support for binary files was necessary resulting in a shift in the application's design." be in the History section? Just a thought. --Shinobu 18:14, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree it seems out of place, but I think it's necessary to somehow mention in the intro that diff handles text and binary data. The sentence is just being a little more specific. No worries.

Why I deleted Unix and the $-sign

I deleted Unix from the intro because there are diffs for every platform. The Unix heritage is discussed in the History section so I think that's okay. I removed the $-sign, because prompts look different on every system (even if one compares two Unixen). Apart from that, most texts illustrating a command to be entered don't display the prompt, because it might be confused with input that has to be entered by the user. Bye, Shinobu 18:12, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Not enough said about patch(1)

I think the page should have a little more about patch(1) - not the whole content of patch's page, but a short introduction and a link to the page; elsewhere than in the GNU advertisements or "See also" section. I might write something when I have time.

I've added a sentence to the History section. It could probably use mentioning in the top section, I couldn't think of what. --132.198.104.164 17:49, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Where to list DiffNote

DiffNote parses the output of the GNU diff command 'diff -y' and it's a free web application. I originally listed it under Free software implementations, but someone moved it to External links because it's not software and it's a web app. I think it is a free software implementation, as in an implementation of software, and the description of Free software implementations fits it. I don't want to revert it back to the Free software implementations section because it's my web app and some people might say I shouldn't even have posted it in the first place, but if there's agreement here that it belongs under Free software implementations, I'll move it back. -Barry- 19:56, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not think it is an implementation as it is merely parsing diff's output, according to you. --maru (talk) contribs 20:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether parsing is the right word. DiffNote shows invisible characters as red dots, while 'GNU diff -y' renders them. If you use 'GNU diff -y' on a line that has a carriage return in the middle of the text, the CR will cause the text after the CR to show at the beginning of the line and the text that was at the beginning of the line in the file you were diffing won't be shown. In DiffNote, all text is shown and the CR is represented by a red dot (which will eventually be titled "ASCII 13" so you'll know exactly what it represents). The order of the lines in the output, and (essentially) the gutter markers are the same as in 'GNU diff -y' but other things, like the red dots, are different. -Barry- 20:41, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Patience diff

There seems to be increasing interest in the use of the patience diff algorithm, particularly for revision control. In particular, Codeville's precise merge algorithm (pcvd) employs it, and there has been interest in employing it for Bazaar-NG (see https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/bazaar-ng/2005q4/005971.html, https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/bazaar-ng/2006q2/010652.html). I've seen a few references (including Codeville's own documentation for pcvd at http://revctrl.org/PreciseCodevilleMerge) that point to the Patience sorting article.

• Longest-common subsequence problem doesn't mention Patience sorting.
• Patience sorting has a section "Algorithm for finding the longest increasing subsequence", but doesn't link to Longest-common subsequence problem.
• This article (diff) doesn't mention Patience sorting's applicability to diffing/patching.

I feel that this is something that wikipedia could treat better, but I'm not sure how to go about it.

— Daf 19:59, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Diff links

You're allowed to think the numerous links on the Diff page are "useful", but that's not the measuring bar. The links I deleted are not relevant to the diff command. They're neat little Web sites that do the similar task that Diff does, but every generic Web file comparison tool can't be expected to be listed. After reviewing all of them, I did allow one Web site of note that provides output similar to using the actual Diff command. A lot of them are just more of the same thing and pollute the articles "External Links".

If you don't know, Misplaced Pages is not a link repository. Suggestions on what to include in "External Links" can be read at Misplaced Pages:External links. Thanks to your revert I did notice that I deleted the Unix commands template. Thanks for that. --71.254.13.237 23:53, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

One of the links you deleted was to DiffNote, which I created. It's a wrapper for diff -y, with some extra features, so it's pretty closely related to diff. Several months ago, I researched the other diff tools that were listed in the article, and many use diff as their back end. I'd agree to use that as the standard for inclusion. Right now, I can only confirm that DiffNote uses diff for its back end, so I'd like DiffNote put back.

I'd also like to make it easy to find alternative file comparison tools, so I'd add a link to File comparison to the See also section and mention that other tools are listed there. I'd also add something like "similar tools listed at File comparison" at the bottom of the external links section, even though it's not an external link, since that's the section that would catch people's eye if they're looking for similar tools. File comparison would then be linked three times from Diff. I obviously like usability. That's why I created DiffNote. -Barry- 01:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Having mentioned that your revert was based on protecting your own Web site's listing would have been the better thing to do for the sake of full disclosure. This conflict of interest of yours is obviously going to cloud what you think the "standard of inclusion" will be. This is one of the things Misplaced Pages advises against at Misplaced Pages:External links#Links to normally avoid. --71.254.13.237 22:45, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I proposed a file comparison infobox here. -Barry- 03:28, 5 July 2006 (UTC)