📝 text-diff-cli

A zero-dependency CLI tool for comparing text files line-by-line. Uses the LCS (Longest Common Subsequence) algorithm for accurate diffs with color-coded output.

Install

npm install -g text-diff-cli

Usage

# Compare two files
text-diff file1.txt file2.txt

# Compare from stdin
echo "hello" | text-diff - file.txt

# Adjust context lines
text-diff old.js new.js --context 5

# Disable colors
text-diff a.txt b.txt --no-color

# Compact side-by-side format
text-diff a.txt b.txt --compact

Example Output

  text-diff: old.txt → new.txt
  2 additions, 1 deletions, 4 unchanged

  Hello World
  This is a test
 -This line was removed
 +This line was added
 +Another new line
  Final line

With colors enabled:

• Red (-) = deleted lines
• Green (+) = added lines
• Dim = context/skipped lines

  text-diff: old.js → new.js
  3 additions, 2 deletions, 12 unchanged

  function hello() {
    console.log("hello");
  -
  -// Old comment
  +// Updated comment
  +// Another added comment
  +
    function world() {
      return "world";
    }
  }

Options

| Option | Alias | Description | |--------|-------|-------------| | --context <N> | -c | Number of context lines (default: 3) | | --no-color | | Disable ANSI color output | | --compact | | Compact line-numbered format | | --help | -h | Show help |

Features

• ✅ Pure Node.js — no external dependencies
• ✅ LCS algorithm — accurate diff with optimal matching
• ✅ Color-coded output — red for deletions, green for additions
• ✅ Context lines — configurable surrounding context
• ✅ Compact format — line numbers with visual separation
• ✅ stdin support — pipe content through -
• ✅ Automatic color detection — respects TTY and NO_COLOR

License

MIT