Text Diff

How to read it

The output is a standard unified diff, the same format git diff and diff -u produce, so you can paste the copied patch into code review, emails or bug reports and everyone will read it the same way. Lines with a minus were removed, lines with a plus were added, and the surrounding unchanged lines are shown in grey so you can orient yourself. The @@ headers give the line numbers each change starts at in both versions.

Two comparison options come in handy for prose and config files: ignore whitespace treats re-indentation and doubled spaces as unchanged, and ignore case treats Option and option as the same word. The diff still shows the real lines, it just stops counting those differences as changes.

Under the hood this is a line-based shortest-edit-distance diff, and the result is minimal: you will never see a change spelled with more edits than it needs. Both sides are compared entirely on your device — the page has no network calls at all, so it is also fine for text you would rather not paste anywhere.