On Sat, 1 Apr 2023 Susmita/Rajib wrote:
My illustrious team leaders and senior debian-user list-members,
[trimmed: admirably comprehensive description of OPs use-case]
Diff helps in comparing the two draft editions.
It does indeed do what it was designed to do.
Dear Mr. l0f4r0: that pointer, https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/537418/how-to-make-text-wrap-with-diff-y; indeed helped and led me to icdiff which is wonderful. Unfortunately, for two very large text files, the terminal truncates the beginning and just highlights the end sections of the files.
As you have discovered, if you do not pipe output to a pager, it will not be paged.
Icdiff didn't work with " | less".
"Didn't work." A remarkably inarticulate non-description, and uncharacteristic of our honored declaimant. Try icdiff file1 file2 | less -R and report back.
But it sure worked with " | more". Similarly, with diff -y <(fold -s -w72 file1) <(fold -s -w72 file2) -W 200, the beginning is truncated and only the end is displayed. And yes, it works with " | more". But it is bland.
"Bland" is not a bug. If "spicy" is a requirement for your professional tools, my sympathy dwindles to a trickle.
Without colours differences can't be spotted so easily.
One gets the feeling that you find colors very helpful. Sounds like a requirement to me. Say so prominently: "I require differences to be highlighted in vibrant color." [trimmed: copious acknowledgments]
Bottom line is: icdiff is wonderful, but from a terminal it becomes limited. Can;t a good programmer have icdiff ported to GUI?
In its present form its output can be piped to other utilities, such as the pagers more, less, and most. This is compositionality, which multiplies the usefulness of a tool. Toolmakers appreciate this, as do intelligent tool users.
It would be the best solution available for me, and for people like me.
[rest trimmed] If you are in the business of producing and processing text, it might be more productive for you to invest more time in learning how to take professional advantage of unix text-processing tools, and to spend less time trying to tell the rare developer that may peruse debian-user what they ought to develop for you. -- Hackers are free people. They are like artists. If they are in a good mood, they get up in the morning and begin painting their pictures. -- Vladimir Putin
