Re: I would like to make a suggestion for the diff command.

Jeff Silverman wrote:
> I have a command which comes in two variants.  The command outputs a single
> line that is a couple of thousand characters long.  The diff command
> correctly outputs that the two lines are different, but I would like to
> know which characters within the line are different.

Check out the wdiff program.  It will do what you want.

  https://www.gnu.org/software/wdiff/

  bash$ wdiff <(echo one two three) <(echo one too three)
  one [-two-] {+too+} three

Also see the -t option for terminal highlighting.

Also note that the diffutils have a dedicated mailing list.  You can
reach the diffutils developers directly at the [email protected]
address.  Here is the web page with more information.

  https://www.gnu.org/software/diffutils/

> I would like you to add a --color switch to make diff output the characters
> that are different in different colors, say red for deletions and green for
> additions.  The diff command would have to sense the terminal type to see
> if it is color capable.

Also check out the "colordiff" program.

  http://www.colordiff.org/

Bob