Jrv Text Diff

Compare two text files or strings side-by-side or unified. Highlights additions, deletions, and changes with color. Supports word-level diff, ignore-whitespace, and JSON/YAML structural diff modes.

Compare two texts, files, or code snippets and show exactly what changed. Supports unified diff, side-by-side view, word-level highlighting, and structural diff for JSON/YAML.

Quick Start

bash

# Compare two files
python3 scripts/text_diff.py file1.txt file2.txt

# Compare inline strings
python3 scripts/text_diff.py --text "hello world" --text2 "hello there"

# Unified diff (patch format)
python3 scripts/text_diff.py file1.txt file2.txt --format unified

# Side-by-side comparison
python3 scripts/text_diff.py file1.txt file2.txt --format side-by-side

# Word-level diff
python3 scripts/text_diff.py file1.txt file2.txt --word-diff

# Ignore whitespace
python3 scripts/text_diff.py file1.txt file2.txt --ignore-whitespace

# JSON structural diff
python3 scripts/text_diff.py data1.json data2.json --format json

# YAML structural diff
python3 scripts/text_diff.py config1.yaml config2.yaml --format yaml

# Output diff as JSON report
python3 scripts/text_diff.py file1.txt file2.txt --output-json

Commands

Command	Description
text_diff.py <file1> <file2>	Compare two files (default: unified diff)
--text <str> --text2 <str>	Compare two inline strings
--format unified	Unified patch-style diff output
--format side-by-side	Two-column comparison
--format context	Context diff (like diff -c)
--format json	Structural JSON diff
--format yaml	Structural YAML diff
--word-diff	Highlight word-level changes within lines
--ignore-whitespace	Ignore leading/trailing whitespace
--ignore-case	Case-insensitive comparison
--context N	Lines of context (default: 3)
--output-json	Output diff stats as JSON
--no-color	Disable ANSI color output

Use Cases

• Code review: See exactly what changed between two versions of a config or script
• Config auditing: Spot differences between prod and staging configs
• JSON/YAML diffs: Structural comparison ignoring key ordering
• Copy editing: Word-level diff for prose documents
• CI pipelines: JSON output for programmatic diff analysis

Exit Codes

• 0 — Files are identical
• 1 — Files differ
• 2 — Error (file not found, parse error, etc.)