# line_diff
Tool to make a diff between to single lines. The intended use case is to compare long lines where parts are different or missing.
For example:
* long command lines with many arguments and flags
* Compiler commands with many paths (with potentially different order)
* Long function declarations with slightly different arguments
Features:
* Multiple, user specified separators
* Converting all text to lowercase
* Sorting chunks before comparing the chunks
* Different input options: Command line, two files, single file or standard input
* Statistics about the number of chunks and number of characters
* Store preprocessed data into files in order to use favorite diff tool
## Example output
Comparing to different cargo commands with arguments in different order.
With line_diff it is easy to spot that the only difference is the --release argument
```
Line 1:
cargo run -- -o --file f1.txt -s ",;"
Line 2:
cargo run --release -- --file f1.txt -s ",;" -o
┌────────┬────────────┬───────────┐
│ Line 1 │ Same │ Line 2 │
├────────┼────────────┼───────────┤
│ │ ",;" │ │
│ │ -- │ │
│ │ --file │ │
├────────┼────────────┼───────────┤
│ │ │ --release │
├────────┼────────────┼───────────┤
│ │ -o │ │
│ │ -s │ │
│ │ cargo │ │
│ │ f1.txt │ │
│ │ run │ │
├────────┼────────────┼───────────┤
│ 37 │ Characters │ 47 │
├────────┼────────────┼───────────┤
│ 8 │ Chunks │ 9 │
└────────┴────────────┴───────────┘
```
## Examples
Compare two lines from two different input files.
```
line_diff --file1 f1.txt --file2 f2.txt
```
Compare two lines from two different input files. With the -o option the chunks will be sorted before comparison.
This is handy for cases such as compiler flags where the ordering does not matter.
```
line_diff --file1 f1.txt --file2 f2.txt -o
```
Compare two lines from two a single input file and with sorting of the chunks.
Specify two different separators (' ' and ';') with the -s option
```
line_diff --file f1.txt -o -s ' ' ';'
```
Compare two lines by specifying the string on the command line
```
line_diff --line1 "hello world" --line2 "hello there"
```
Compare two lines, but first convert them both to lowercase
```
line_diff --line1 "hello world" --line2 "Hello wOrld" -l
```