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Summary

Algorithm::Diff - Compute `intelligent' differences between two files / lists

Package variables

Inherit

Exporter

Synopsis

  use Algorithm::Diff qw(diff LCS traverse_sequences);

  @lcs    = LCS( \@seq1, \@seq2 );

  @lcs    = LCS( \@seq1, \@seq2, $key_generation_function );

  $lcsref = LCS( \@seq1, \@seq2 );

  $lcsref = LCS( \@seq1, \@seq2, $key_generation_function );

  @diffs = diff( \@seq1, \@seq2 );

  @diffs = diff( \@seq1, \@seq2, $key_generation_function );
  
  traverse_sequences( \@seq1, \@seq2,
                     { MATCH => $callback,
                       DISCARD_A => $callback,
                       DISCARD_B => $callback,
                     } );

  traverse_sequences( \@seq1, \@seq2,
                     { MATCH => $callback,
                       DISCARD_A => $callback,
                       DISCARD_B => $callback,
                     },
                     $key_generation_function );

Description

No description!

Methods

Methods description

None available.

Methods code

sub LCS {

	my $a = shift;	# array ref
	my $matchVector = _longestCommonSubsequence( $a, @_ );
	my @retval;
	my $i;
	for ( $i = 0; $i <= $#$matchVector; $i++ )
	{
		if ( defined( $matchVector->[ $i ] ) )
		{
			push( @retval, $a->[ $i ] );
		}
	}
	return wantarray ? @retval :\@ retval;

}

sub _longestCommonSubsequence {

	my $a = shift;	# array ref
	my $b = shift;	# array ref
	my $keyGen = shift;	# code ref
	my $compare;	# code ref

	# set up code refs
	# Note that these are optimized.
	if ( !defined( $keyGen ) )	# optimize for strings
	{
		$keyGen = sub { $_[0] };
		$compare = sub { my ($a, $b) = @_; $a eq $b };
	}
	else
	{
		$compare = sub {
			my $a = shift; my $b = shift;
			&$keyGen( $a, @_ ) eq &$keyGen( $b, @_ )
		};
	}

	my ($aStart, $aFinish, $bStart, $bFinish, $matchVector) = (0, $#$a, 0, $#$b, []);

	# First we prune off any common elements at the beginning
	while ( $aStart <= $aFinish
		and $bStart <= $bFinish
		and &$compare( $a->[ $aStart ], $b->[ $bStart ], @_ ) )
	{
		$matchVector->[ $aStart++ ] = $bStart++;
	}

	# now the end
	while ( $aStart <= $aFinish
		and $bStart <= $bFinish
		and &$compare( $a->[ $aFinish ], $b->[ $bFinish ], @_ ) )
	{
		$matchVector->[ $aFinish-- ] = $bFinish--;
	}

	# Now compute the equivalence classes of positions of elements
	my $bMatches = _withPositionsOfInInterval( $b, $bStart, $bFinish, $keyGen, @_ );
	my $thresh = [];
	my $links = [];

	my ( $i, $ai, $j, $k );
	for ( $i = $aStart; $i <= $aFinish; $i++ )
	{
		$ai = &$keyGen( $a->[ $i ] );
		if ( exists( $bMatches->{ $ai } ) )
		{
			$k = 0;
			for $j ( reverse( @{ $bMatches->{ $ai } } ) )
			{
				# optimization: most of the time this will be true
				if ( $k
					and $thresh->[ $k ] > $j
					and $thresh->[ $k - 1 ] < $j )
				{
					$thresh->[ $k ] = $j;
				}
				else
				{
					$k = _replaceNextLargerWith( $thresh, $j, $k );
				}

				# oddly, it's faster to always test this (CPU cache?).
				if ( defined( $k ) )
				{
					$links->[ $k ] = 
						[ ( $k ? $links->[ $k - 1 ] : undef ), $i, $j ];
				}
			}
		}
	}

	if ( @$thresh )
	{
		for ( my $link = $links->[ $#$thresh ]; $link; $link = $link->[ 0 ] )
		{
			$matchVector->[ $link->[ 1 ] ] = $link->[ 2 ];
		}
	}

	return wantarray ? @$matchVector : $matchVector;

}

sub _replaceNextLargerWith {

	my ( $array, $aValue, $high ) = @_;
	$high ||= $#$array;

	# off the end?
	if ( $high == -1 || $aValue > $array->[ -1 ] )
	{
		push( @$array, $aValue );
		return $high + 1;
	}

	# binary search for insertion point...
	my $low = 0;
	my $index;
	my $found;
	while ( $low <= $high )
	{
		$index = ( $high + $low ) / 2;
#		$index = int(( $high + $low ) / 2);		# without 'use integer'
		$found = $array->[ $index ];

		if ( $aValue == $found )
		{
			return undef;
		}
		elsif ( $aValue > $found )
		{
			$low = $index + 1;
		}
		else
		{
			$high = $index - 1;
		}
	}

	# now insertion point is in $low.
	$array->[ $low ] = $aValue;		# overwrite next larger
	return $low;
}

# This method computes the longest common subsequence in $a and $b.

# Result is array or ref, whose contents is such that
# 	$a->[ $i ] = $b->[ $result[ $i ] ]
# foreach $i in ( 0..scalar( @result ) if $result[ $i ] is defined.

# An additional argument may be passed; this is a hash or key generating
# function that should return a string that uniquely identifies the given
# element.  It should be the case that if the key is the same, the elements
# will compare the same. If this parameter is undef or missing, the key
# will be the element as a string.

# By default, comparisons will use "eq" and elements will be turned into keys
# using the default stringizing operator '""'.

# Additional parameters, if any, will be passed to the key generation routine.

}

sub _withPositionsOfInInterval {

	my $aCollection = shift;	# array ref
	my $start = shift;
	my $end = shift;
	my $keyGen = shift;
	my %d;
	my $index;
	for ( $index = $start; $index <= $end; $index++ )
	{
		my $element = $aCollection->[ $index ];
		my $key = &$keyGen( $element, @_ );
		if ( exists( $d{ $key } ) )
		{
			push( @{ $d{ $key } }, $index );
		}
		else
		{
			$d{ $key } = [ $index ];
		}
	}
	return wantarray ? %d:\% d;
}

# Find the place at which aValue would normally be inserted into the array. If
# that place is already occupied by aValue, do nothing, and return undef. If
# the place does not exist (i.e., it is off the end of the array), add it to
# the end, otherwise replace the element at that point with aValue.
# It is assumed that the array's values are numeric.
# This is where the bulk (75%) of the time is spent in this module, so try to
# make it fast!

}

sub diff {

	my $a = shift;	# array ref
	my $b = shift;	# array ref
	my $retval = [];
	my $hunk = [];
	my $discard = sub { push( @$hunk, [ '-', $_[ 0 ], $a->[ $_[ 0 ] ] ] ) };
	my $add = sub { push( @$hunk, [ '+', $_[ 1 ], $b->[ $_[ 1 ] ] ] ) };
	my $match = sub { push( @$retval, $hunk ) if scalar(@$hunk); $hunk = [] };
	traverse_sequences( $a, $b,
		{ MATCH => $match, DISCARD_A => $discard, DISCARD_B => $add },
		@_ );
	&$match();
	return wantarray ? @$retval : $retval;
}

1;

}

sub traverse_sequences {

	my $a = shift;	# array ref
	my $b = shift;	# array ref
	my $callbacks = shift || { };
	my $keyGen = shift;
	my $matchCallback = $callbacks->{'MATCH'} || sub { };
	my $discardACallback = $callbacks->{'DISCARD_A'} || sub { };
	my $discardBCallback = $callbacks->{'DISCARD_B'} || sub { };
	my $matchVector = _longestCommonSubsequence( $a, $b, $keyGen, @_ );
	# Process all the lines in match vector
	my $lastA = $#$a;
	my $lastB = $#$b;
	my $bi = 0;
	my $ai;
	for ( $ai = 0; $ai <= $#$matchVector; $ai++ )
	{
		my $bLine = $matchVector->[ $ai ];
		if ( defined( $bLine ) )
		{
			&$discardBCallback( $ai, $bi++, @_ ) while $bi < $bLine;
			&$matchCallback( $ai, $bi++, @_ );
		}
		else
		{
			&$discardACallback( $ai, $bi, @_ );
		}
	}

	&$discardACallback( $ai++, $bi, @_ ) while ( $ai <= $lastA );
	&$discardBCallback( $ai, $bi++, @_ ) while ( $bi <= $lastB );
	return 1;

}

General documentation

(by Mark-Jason Dominus)
I once read an article written by the authors of diff; they said
that they hard worked very hard on the algorithm until they found the
right one.
I think what they ended up using (and I hope someone will correct me,
because I am not very confident about this) was the `longest common
subsequence' method. in the LCS problem, you have two sequences of
items:

        a b c d f g h j q z

        a b c d e f g i j k r x y z

and you want to find the longest sequence of items that is present in
both original sequences in the same order. That is, you want to find
a new sequence S which can be obtained from the first sequence by
deleting some items, and from the secend sequence by deleting other
items. You also want S to be as long as possible. In this case
S is

        a b c d f g j z

From there it's only a small step to get diff-like output:

        e   h i   k   q r x y 
        +   - +   +   - + + +

This module solves the LCS problem. It also includes a canned
function to generate diff-like output.
It might seem from the example above that the LCS of two sequences is
always pretty obvious, but that's not always the case, especially when
the two sequences have many repeated elements. For example, consider

	a x b y c z p d q
	a b c a x b y c z

A naive approach might start by matching up the a and b that
appear at the beginning of each sequence, like this:

	a x b y c         z p d q
	a   b   c a b y c z

This finds the common subsequence a b c z. But actually, the LCS
is a x b y c z:

	      a x b y c z p d q
	a b c a x b y c z

This module provides three exportable functions, which we'll deal with in
ascending order of difficulty: LCS, diff, and
traverse_sequences.

Given references to two lists of items, LCS returns an array containing their
longest common subsequence. In scalar context, it returns a reference to
such a list.

  @lcs    = LCS( \@seq1, \@seq2 );
  $lcsref = LCS( \@seq1, \@seq2 );

LCS may be passed an optional third parameter; this is a CODE
reference to a key generation function. See /KEY GENERATION FUNCTIONS.

  @lcs    = LCS( \@seq1, \@seq2, $keyGen );
  $lcsref = LCS( \@seq1, \@seq2, $keyGen );

Additional parameters, if any, will be passed to the key generation
routine.

  @diffs     = diff( \@seq1, \@seq2 );
  $diffs_ref = diff( \@seq1, \@seq2 );

diff computes the smallest set of additions and deletions necessary
to turn the first sequence into the second, and returns a description
of these changes. The description is a list of hunks; each hunk
represents a contiguous section of items which should be added,
deleted, or replaced. The return value of diff is a list of
hunks, or, in scalar context, a reference to such a list.
Here is an example: The diff of the following two sequences:

  a b c e h j l m n p
  b c d e f j k l m r s t

Result:

 [ 
   [ [ '-', 0, 'a' ] ],       

   [ [ '+', 2, 'd' ] ],

   [ [ '-', 4, 'h' ] , 
     [ '+', 4, 'f' ] ],

   [ [ '+', 6, 'k' ] ],

   [ [ '-', 8, 'n' ], 
     [ '-', 9, 'p' ], 
     [ '+', 9, 'r' ], 
     [ '+', 10, 's' ], 
     [ '+', 11, 't' ],
   ]
 ]

There are five hunks here. The first hunk says that the a at
position 0 of the first sequence should be deleted (-). The second
hunk says that the d at position 2 of the second sequence should
be inserted (+). The third hunk says that the h at position 4
of the first sequence should be removed and replaced with the f
from position 4 of the second sequence. The other two hunks similarly.
diff may be passed an optional third parameter; this is a CODE
reference to a key generation function. See /KEY GENERATION FUNCTIONS.
Additional parameters, if any, will be passed to the key generation
routine.

traverse_sequences is the most general facility provided by this
module; diff and LCS are implemented as calls to it.
Imagine that there are two arrows. Arrow A points to an element of
sequence A, and arrow B points to an element of the sequence B.
Initially, the arrows point to the first elements of the respective
sequences. traverse_sequences will advance the arrows through the
sequences one element at a time, calling an appropriate user-specified
callback function before each advance. It willadvance the arrows in
such a way that if there are equal elements $A[$i] and $B[$j]
which are equal and which are part of the LCS, there will be some
moment during the execution of traverse_sequences when arrow A is
pointing to $A[$i] and arrow B is pointing to $B[$j]. When this
happens, traverse_sequences will call the MATCH callback
function and then it will advance both arrows.
Otherwise, one of the arrows is pointing to an element of its sequence
that is not part of the LCS. traverse_sequences will advance that
arrow and will call the DISCARD_A or the DISCARD_B callback,
depending on which arrow it advanced. If both arrows point to
elements that are not part of the LCS, then traverse_sequences will
advance one of them and call the appropriate callback, but it is not
specified which it will call.
The arguments to traverse_sequences are the two sequences to
traverse, and a callback which specifies the callback functions, like
this:

  traverse_sequences( \@seq1, \@seq2,
                     { MATCH => $callback_1,
                       DISCARD_A => $callback_2,
                       DISCARD_B => $callback_3,
                     } );

Callbacks are invoked with at least the indices of the two arrows as
their arguments. They are not expected to return any values. If a
callback is omitted from the table, it is not called.
If arrow A reaches the end of its sequence, before arrow B does,
traverse_sequences will call the A_FINISHED callback when it
advances arrow B, if there is such a function; if not it will call
DISCARD_B instead. Similarly if arrow B finishes first.
traverse_sequences returns when both arrows are at the ends of
their respective sequences. It returns true on success and false on
failure. At present there is no way to fail.
traverse_sequences may be passed an optional fourth parameter; this
is a CODE reference to a key generation function. See /KEY GENERATION FUNCTIONS.
Additional parameters, if any, will be passed to the key generation
function.

diff, LCS, and traverse_sequences accept an optional last parameter.
This is a CODE reference to a key generating (hashing) function that should
return a string that uniquely identifies a given element.
It should be the case that if two elements are to be considered equal,
their keys should be the same (and the other way around).
If no key generation function is provided, the key will be the
element as a string.
By default, comparisons will use "eq" and elements will be turned into keys
using the default stringizing operator '""'.
Where this is important is when you're comparing something other than
strings. If it is the case that you have multiple different objects
that should be considered to be equal, you should supply a key
generation function. Otherwise, you have to make sure that your arrays
contain unique references.
For instance, consider this example:

  package Person;

  sub new
  {
    my $package = shift;
    return bless { name => '', ssn => '', @_ }, $package;
  }

  sub clone
  {
    my $old = shift;
    my $new = bless { %$old }, ref($old);
  }

  sub hash
  {
    return shift()->{'ssn'};
  }

  my $person1 = Person->new( name => 'Joe', ssn => '123-45-6789' );
  my $person2 = Person->new( name => 'Mary', ssn => '123-47-0000' );
  my $person3 = Person->new( name => 'Pete', ssn => '999-45-2222' );
  my $person4 = Person->new( name => 'Peggy', ssn => '123-45-9999' );
  my $person5 = Person->new( name => 'Frank', ssn => '000-45-9999' );

If you did this:

  my $array1 = [ $person1, $person2, $person4 ];
  my $array2 = [ $person1, $person3, $person4, $person5 ];
  Algorithm::Diff::diff( $array1, $array2 );

everything would work out OK (each of the objects would be converted
into a string like "Person=HASH(0x82425b0)" for comparison).
But if you did this:

  my $array1 = [ $person1, $person2, $person4 ];
  my $array2 = [ $person1, $person3, $person4->clone(), $person5 ];
  Algorithm::Diff::diff( $array1, $array2 );

$person4 and $person4->clone() (which have the same name and SSN)
would be seen as different objects. If you wanted them to be considered
equivalent, you would have to pass in a key generation function:

  my $array1 = [ $person1, $person2, $person4 ];
  my $array2 = [ $person1, $person3, $person4->clone(), $person5 ];
  Algorithm::Diff::diff( $array1, $array2, \&Person::hash );

This would use the 'ssn' field in each Person as a comparison key, and
so would consider $person4 and $person4->clone() as equal.
You may also pass additional parameters to the key generation function
if you wish.

This version by Ned Konz, perl@bike-nomad.com

Versions through 0.59 (and much of this documentation) were written by:
Mark-Jason Dominus, mjd-perl-diff@plover.com
This version borrows the documentation and names of the routines
from Mark-Jason's, but has all new code in Diff.pm.
This code was adapted from the Smalltalk code of
Mario Wolczko <mario@wolczko.com>, which is available at
ftp://st.cs.uiuc.edu/pub/Smalltalk/MANCHESTER/manchester/4.0/diff.st
The algorithm is that described in
A Fast Algorithm for Computing Longest Common Subsequences,
CACM, vol.20, no.5, pp.350-353, May 1977, with a few
minor improvements to improve the speed.