Using 'diff' (or anything else) to get character-level diff between text files

Question

I'd like to use 'diff' to get a both line difference between and character difference. For example, consider:

File 1

abcde abc abcccd 

File 2

abcde ab abccc 

Using diff -u I get:

@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@  abcde -abc -abcccd \ No newline at end of file +ab +abccc \ No newline at end of file 

However, it only shows me that were changes in these lines. What I'd like to see is something like:

@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@  abcde -ab<ins>c</ins> -abccc<ins>d</ins> \ No newline at end of file +ab +abccc \ No newline at end of file 

You get my drift.

Now, I know I can use other engines to mark/check the difference on a specific line. But I'd rather use one tool that does all of it.

Answer 1

Git has a word diff, and defining all characters as words effectively gives you a character diff. However, newline changes are ignored.

Example

Create a repository like this:

mkdir chardifftest cd chardifftest git init echo -e 'foobarbaz\ncatdog\nfox' > file git add -A; git commit -m 1 echo -e 'fuobArbas\ncat\ndogfox' > file git add -A; git commit -m 2 

Now, do git diff --word-diff=color --word-diff-regex=. master^ master and you'll get:

Note how both additions and deletions are recognized at the character level, while both additions and deletions of newlines are ignored.

You may also want to try one of these:

git diff --word-diff=plain --word-diff-regex=. master^ master git diff --word-diff=porcelain --word-diff-regex=. master^ master 

Answer 2

You can use:

diff -u f1 f2 |colordiff |diff-highlight 

colordiff is a Ubuntu package. You can install it using sudo apt-get install colordiff.

diff-highlight is from git (since version 2.9). It is located in /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/diff-highlight/diff-highlight. You can put it somewhere in your $PATH.