The maintained successor if this library is https://github.com/java-diff-utils/java-diff-utils
A library for computing diffs, applying patches, generation side-by-side view in Java.
java-diff-utils is an open source library for performing comparison operations between chunks of text: computing diffs, applying patches, generating unified diffs or parsing them, generating diff output for easy future display (like a side-by-side view) and so on.
The main reason for creating this library was the lack of easy-to-use libraries with all the usual features necessary for working with diff files. Originally it was inspired by the JRCS library and its nice diff module design.
- Computing the difference between two chunks of text.
- Capable of handling more than plain ASCII. Arrays or Lists of any type that implement hashCode() and equals() correctly can be used as inputs for differencing using this library.
- Patch and unpatch the text with the given patch.
- Parsing the unified diff format.
- Producing human-readable differences.
Since version 2.2.0, this fork of java-diff-utils is hosted on Maven Central. This means you can add java-diff-utils as a dependency to your project using Gradle.
Add java-diff-utils to your dependencies like this:
dependencies {
compile 'io.github.java-diff-utils:java-diff-utils:2.2.0'
}This library implements Myers' diff algorithm, but it is modular so it is easy to replace the algorithm with another which might be better suited to your needs.
- In Spanish: Comparar Ficheros java-diff-utils
The library was originally hosted on Google Code at https://code.google.com/p/java-diff-utils/.
This library is a fork originally created by @KengoTODA (published on maven central using the group id jp.skypencil.java-diff-utils) and enhanced by @bkromhout.
Since GitHub does not connect forks based on Google Code, other variants appeared in parallel:
- https://github.com/dnaumenko/java-diff-utils - Created by the original Google Code maintainer
- https://github.com/wumpz/java-diff-utils - Created from the Google Code repository starting in 2017. Now maintained at http://github.com/java-diff-utils/java-diff-utils.
This work is licensed under The Apache Software License, Version 1.1.
Reason: The code contains work of HP, which contributed it under Apache-1.1. [Example code]. It was easier to change the license to Apache-1.1 than to contact HP Legal for a code created in 2003 at HP Bristol.
I had a discussion with Juancarlo and Brian McBride. Brian worked for HPLabs in Bristol (UK) at that time. His authorship appears in three files:
- https://github.com/apache/wicket/blob/master/wicket-util/src/main/java/org/apache/wicket/util/diff/DiffAlgorithm.java
- https://github.com/apache/wicket/blob/master/wicket-util/src/main/java/org/apache/wicket/util/diff/Revision.java
- https://github.com/apache/wicket/blob/master/wicket-util/src/main/java/org/apache/wicket/util/diff/Delta.java
All other files at JRCS are (according to Juancarlo) 100% authored by Juancarlo in a cleanroom way.
Since Brian pointed me to HP and I do not want to fight with HP, I agreed with Juancarlo to change the license of the JRCS files to Apache-1.1.
More reading on JRCS and java-diff-utils license issues: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=696165 and https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1013039.
The alternative to Apache-1.1 license is to find out which code was written by Brian and to replace this code by some other clean room developed code.