Fascinating post on how diff algorithms actually work: https://blog.jcoglan.com/2017/02/12/the-myers-diff-algorithm-part-1/ (multiple possible implementations!)
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I'm not sure if I should use the term "text diff" or "textual diff" to refer to a conventional, line-oriented diff of text in difftastic.
Any opinions? Which seems clearer to you?
Spent a bunch of time learning about text diffing algorithms this evening.
"Myers Algorithm" refers to a specific paper written by Eugene Myers, and he published faster algorithms later!
https://github.com/Wilfred/difftastic/wiki/LCS-Algorithms
Difftastic has been cited in a paper!
Modernizing SMT-Based Type Error Localization https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.09034
The authors use difftastic to work out which parts of a buggy program have actually changed, a great use case :)