Diff Check is a command-line tool that compares two files and prints the differences between them.
The way this works is that it builds a 2D matrix of the two files by computing for the longest subsequence between each files. It then prints the differences between the two files by backtracking through the matrix.
The LCS implementation used is based on this Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_common_subsequence
There are 2 ways to use this application.
- Build the app from source
- Download the executable and run it
I recommend just building the app from source because downloading the executable requires you to have Erlang installed anyway.
First, clone the repo and go to the new directory.
git clone git@github.com:terenceponce/diff_check.git
cd diff_check
Next, make sure that you have the correct version Erlang and Elixir installed using asdf.
NOTE: If you are using a different version manager for Erlang and Elixir, feel free to ignore this step.
asdf install
Next, install the dependencies needed by this repo and compile the executable.
mix deps.get
mix escript.build
Finally, run the executable.
./diff_check path/to/base/file path/to/comparison/file
If you don't have any files to compare, you can just use the fixtures used in the tests.
./diff_check test/support/fixtures/test_response_1.json test/support/fixtures/test_response_2.json
NOTE: As I mentioned above, this step requires your machine to have Erlang installed which is why I recommend just building it from source if you're already at that point.
First, go to the Releases Page and download the file that looks like this.
diff_check-x.x.x
Finally, run the executable.
./diff_check-x-x-x path/to/base/file path/to/comparison/file
If you don't have any files to compare, you can just use the fixtures used in the tests.
./diff_check-x-x-x test/support/fixtures/test_response_1.json test/support/fixtures/test_response_2.json