diffi: diff improved; a preview

Abstract

diffi (diff improved) is a comparison tool whose primary goal is to describe the differences between the content of two documents regardless of their formats.

diffi examines the stacks of abstraction levels of the two documents to be compared, finds which levels can be compared, selects one or more appropriate comparison algorithms and calculates the delta(s) between the two documents. Finally, the deltas are serialized using the extended unified patch format, an extension of the common unified patch format.

The produced deltas describe the differences between all the comparable levels of the inputs documents. Users and developers of patch visualization tools have, thus, the choice to focus on their preferred level of abstraction.