DiffComparer

A text diff tool focused on human readability, not just minimal edit distance.

Unlike traditional diff tools, this project prioritizes stable alignment and clarity, making differences easier to understand at a glance.

✨ Features 🔍 Line-based diff engine 🧠 Anchor-based alignment (reduces noisy diffs) ⚡ Myers algorithm fallback for precise comparison ✏️ Word-level diff highlighting 📂 Open and compare real files 🖥️ Clean side-by-side UI (Avalonia) 🎯 Philosophy

Most diff tools optimize for:

minimal number of edits

This project optimizes for:

maximum readability for humans

👉 That means:

fewer “jumping” lines more stable alignment clearer visual changes 🧪 Example

Instead of breaking everything when a line is inserted:

A B C

vs

A X B C

This engine keeps alignment stable:

A

• X B

🏗️ How it works (simplified) Detect anchor lines (exact or similar matches) Split text into stable segments Apply Myers diff inside segments Perform word-level diff for modified lines

🚀 Getting Started Requirements .NET (latest recommended) Avalonia UI Run dotnet run

📸 UI Open left/right files Compare instantly Visual diff with colors: 🟢 Added 🔴 Deleted 🟡 Modified

🧠 Roadmap Navigation between changes “Show only changes” mode Drag & drop support Performance optimizations Moved block detection Merge tool (future)

⚠️ Known limitations Large moved blocks are treated as delete + insert Performance not optimized for very large files yet No merge functionality (yet)

💡 Why this project?

This was built as an experiment to explore:

Diff algorithms (Myers, LCS) Heuristic alignment strategies UI/UX for developer tools

🤝 Contributing

Feedback and ideas are welcome.

If you find a case where the diff looks wrong or confusing, please open an issue.

📜 License

MIT