kdiff3-user

[Kdiff3-user] tdiff3: text-based kdiff3 for large files

[Maurice v. d. P. <gri...@kf...>]

Hi everyone,

For some time I've been wanting to make a text-based user interface for
kdiff3, but after studying kdiff3's code and talking to Joachim Eibl
I've come to the conclusion that it would be too intrusive a change to
add this functionality to kdiff3.

That's why I've recently started working on a new text-based alternative
to kdiff3, called tdiff3.

In a nutshell this program will:
- have an ncurses user interface, allowing it to be used in a terminal
- use the same diff/alignment algorithm as kdiff3
- support merging of very large files without significant slowdown or
  running out of memory

This program is in a very early stage of development and is not yet
usable for diffing/merging.

Unlike kdiff3 this program is written in D, but this language should
feel very familiar to C++ programmers. I would welcome any questions, 
help or contributions from interested users or programmers. Take a look
at the code on github (https://github.com/Griffon26/tdiff3) and send me
a message either on or off this list.

I'm hoping that eventually some of the design choices made for this
program (large file support, external diff process) can be ported back
into kdiff3 as well.

Regards,
Maurice.

-- 
Maurice van der Pot

Kdiff3 developer   gri...@kf...   http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net

Re: [Kdiff3-user] tdiff3: text-based kdiff3 for large files

[Valentin R. <kd...@ru...>]

On 31/01/15 22:33:10, Maurice van der Pot wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> For some time I've been wanting to make a text-based user interface for
> kdiff3, but after studying kdiff3's code and talking to Joachim Eibl
> I've come to the conclusion that it would be too intrusive a change to
> add this functionality to kdiff3.
> 
> That's why I've recently started working on a new text-based alternative
> to kdiff3, called tdiff3.

Excellent news! Even if I'm a regular kdiff3 user, I'll think I'll
definitely try out your version, as a further step to a full text-mode
session. I'm now using I3 and a whole bunch of tools around vim, but
when diffing, I still use kdiff3 because it's a nice piece of software.
So if you're reusing it's handling algorithm, I'll surely use it.
>

Regards,
Valentin

Re: [Kdiff3-user] tdiff3: text-based kdiff3 for large files

[Maurice v. d. P. <gri...@kf...>]

Hi everyone,

A while ago I wrote to this list about tdiff3, a text-based diff/merge
program I had recently started working on, and I would like to give you
an update on this.

I'm happy to say that it has progressed nicely since then and you can
now see what it looks like in the screenshot at the github page:
https://github.com/Griffon26/tdiff3

On the same page you'll find a bit about the development status of the
project as well as a description of the 3 steps needed to compile & run
tdiff3 on your own linux/unix system.


Now is when the development fun really starts! The basic framework of
the program is there, so every improvement made from now on will be
directly visible to users of the application.
And there are many different areas to work on. Be it a status bar to
show if saving the file succeeded (some work with ncurses) or using mmap
on input files to reduce memory usage or adding the feature to manually
edit the merge result (playing with internal data structures to have
edits overlay selected lines from input files).


If you think this project is interesting, have questions about it or
have any other comments, I'd be happy to hear from you. Also if you know
someone who might be interested in this, please spread the word.

Best regards,
Maurice.

P.S.: Joachim, thanks for your part in writing this file ;-P
https://github.com/Griffon26/tdiff3/blob/master/source/diff.d


On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 10:33:10PM +0100, Maurice van der Pot wrote:
> In a nutshell this program will:
> - have an ncurses user interface, allowing it to be used in a terminal
> - use the same diff/alignment algorithm as kdiff3
> - support merging of very large files without significant slowdown or
>   running out of memory

-- 
Maurice van der Pot

Kdiff3 developer   gri...@kf...   http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net
Tdiff3 developer                            https://github.com/Griffon26/tdiff3