The difflib module contains several classes for comparing sequences, especially of lines of text from files, and manipulating the results.
Module: difflib
Purpose: Library of tools for computing and working with differences between sequences, especially of lines in text files.
Python Version: 2.1
Description:
The SequenceMatcher class compares any 2 sequences of values, as long as the values are hashable. It uses a recursive algorithm to identify the longest contiguous matching blocks from the sequences, eliminating “junk” values. The Differ class works on sequences of text lines and produces human-readable deltas, including differences within individual lines. The HtmlDiff class produces similar results formatted as an HTML table.
Test Data:
The examples below will all use this common test data in the difflib_data module:
text1 = """Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Integer eu lacus accumsan arcu fermentum euismod. Donec pulvinar porttitor tellus. Aliquam venenatis. Donec facilisis pharetra tortor. In nec mauris eget magna consequat convallis. Nam sed sem vitae odio pellentesque interdum. Sed consequat viverra nisl. Suspendisse arcu metus, blandit quis, rhoncus ac, pharetra eget, velit. Mauris urna. Morbi nonummy molestie orci. Praesent nisi elit, fringilla ac, suscipit non, tristique vel, mauris. Curabitur vel lorem id nisl porta adipiscing. Suspendisse eu lectus. In nunc. Duis vulputate tristique enim. Donec quis lectus a justo imperdiet tempus.""" text1_lines = text1.splitlines() text2 = """Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Integer eu lacus accumsan arcu fermentum euismod. Donec pulvinar porttitor tellus. Aliquam venenatis. Donec facilisis pharetra tortor. In nec mauris eget magna consequat convallis. Nam sed sem vitae odio pellentesque interdum. Sed consequat viverra nisl. Suspendisse arcu metus, blandit quis, rhoncus ac, pharetra eget, velit. Mauris urna. Morbi nonummy molestie orci. Praesent nisi elit, fringilla ac, suscipit non, tristique vel, mauris. Curabitur vel lorem id nisl porta adipiscing. Suspendisse eu lectus. In nunc. Duis vulputate tristique enim. Donec quis lectus a justo imperdiet tempus.""" text2_lines = text2.splitlines()
Differ Example:
Reproducing output similar to the diff command line tool is simple with the Differ class:
import difflib from difflib_data import * d = difflib.Differ() diff = d.compare(text1_lines, text2_lines) print 'n'.join(list(diff))
The output includes the original input values from both lists, including common values, and markup data to indicate what changes were made. Lines may be prefixed with - to indicate that they were in the first sequence, but not the second. Lines prefixed with + were in the second sequence, but not the first. If a line has an incremental change between versions, an extra line prefixed with ? is used to try to indicate where the change occurred within the line. If a line has not changed, it is printed with an extra blank space on the left column to let it line up with the other lines which may have other markup.
The beginning of both text segments is the same.
1: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Integer
The second line has been changed to include a comma in the modified text. Both versions of the line are printed, with the extra information on line 4 showing the column where the text was modified, including the fact that the , character was added.
2: - eu lacus accumsan arcu fermentum euismod. Donec pulvinar porttitor 3: + eu lacus accumsan arcu fermentum euismod. Donec pulvinar, porttitor 4: ? + 5:
Lines 6-9 of the output shows where an extra space was removed.
6: - tellus. Aliquam venenatis. Donec facilisis pharetra tortor. In nec 7: ? - 8: 9: + tellus. Aliquam venenatis. Donec facilisis pharetra tortor. In nec
Next a more complex change was made, replacing several words in a phrase.
10: - mauris eget magna consequat convallis. Nam sed sem vitae odio 11: ? - -- 12: 13: + mauris eget magna consequat convallis. Nam cras vitae mi vitae odio 14: ? +++ +++++ + 15:
The last sentence in the paragraph was changed significantly, so the difference is represented by simply removing the old version and adding the new (lines 20-23).
16: pellentesque interdum. Sed consequat viverra nisl. Suspendisse arcu 17: metus, blandit quis, rhoncus ac, pharetra eget, velit. Mauris 18: urna. Morbi nonummy molestie orci. Praesent nisi elit, fringilla ac, 19: suscipit non, tristique vel, mauris. Curabitur vel lorem id nisl porta 20: - adipiscing. Suspendisse eu lectus. In nunc. Duis vulputate tristique 21: - enim. Donec quis lectus a justo imperdiet tempus. 22: + adipiscing. Duis vulputate tristique enim. Donec quis lectus a justo 23: + imperdiet tempus. Suspendisse eu lectus. In nunc.
The ndiff() function produces essentially the same output. The processing is specifically tailored to working with text data and eliminating “noise” in the input.
diff = difflib.ndiff(text1_lines, text2_lines)
Other Diff Formats:
Where the Differ class shows all of the inputs, a unified diff only includes modified lines and a bit of context. In version 2.3, a unified_diff() function was added to produce this sort of output:
import difflib from difflib_data import * diff = difflib.unified_diff(text1_lines, text2_lines, lineterm='') print 'n'.join(list(diff))
The output should look familiar to users of svn or other version control tools:
$ python difflib_unified.py --- +++ @@ -1,10 +1,10 @@ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Integer -eu lacus accumsan arcu fermentum euismod. Donec pulvinar porttitor -tellus. Aliquam venenatis. Donec facilisis pharetra tortor. In nec -mauris eget magna consequat convallis. Nam sed sem vitae odio +eu lacus accumsan arcu fermentum euismod. Donec pulvinar, porttitor +tellus. Aliquam venenatis. Donec facilisis pharetra tortor. In nec +mauris eget magna consequat convallis. Nam cras vitae mi vitae odio pellentesque interdum. Sed consequat viverra nisl. Suspendisse arcu metus, blandit quis, rhoncus ac, pharetra eget, velit. Mauris urna. Morbi nonummy molestie orci. Praesent nisi elit, fringilla ac, suscipit non, tristique vel, mauris. Curabitur vel lorem id nisl porta -adipiscing. Suspendisse eu lectus. In nunc. Duis vulputate tristique -enim. Donec quis lectus a justo imperdiet tempus. +adipiscing. Duis vulputate tristique enim. Donec quis lectus a justo +imperdiet tempus. Suspendisse eu lectus. In nunc.
Using context_diff() produces similar readable output:
$ python difflib_context.py *** --- *************** *** 1,10 **** Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Integer ! eu lacus accumsan arcu fermentum euismod. Donec pulvinar porttitor ! tellus. Aliquam venenatis. Donec facilisis pharetra tortor. In nec ! mauris eget magna consequat convallis. Nam sed sem vitae odio pellentesque interdum. Sed consequat viverra nisl. Suspendisse arcu metus, blandit quis, rhoncus ac, pharetra eget, velit. Mauris urna. Morbi nonummy molestie orci. Praesent nisi elit, fringilla ac, suscipit non, tristique vel, mauris. Curabitur vel lorem id nisl porta ! adipiscing. Suspendisse eu lectus. In nunc. Duis vulputate tristique ! enim. Donec quis lectus a justo imperdiet tempus. --- 1,10 ---- Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Integer ! eu lacus accumsan arcu fermentum euismod. Donec pulvinar, porttitor ! tellus. Aliquam venenatis. Donec facilisis pharetra tortor. In nec ! mauris eget magna consequat convallis. Nam cras vitae mi vitae odio pellentesque interdum. Sed consequat viverra nisl. Suspendisse arcu metus, blandit quis, rhoncus ac, pharetra eget, velit. Mauris urna. Morbi nonummy molestie orci. Praesent nisi elit, fringilla ac, suscipit non, tristique vel, mauris. Curabitur vel lorem id nisl porta ! adipiscing. Duis vulputate tristique enim. Donec quis lectus a justo ! imperdiet tempus. Suspendisse eu lectus. In nunc.
HTML Output:
HtmlDiff (new in Python 2.4) produces HTML output with the same information as the Diff class. This example uses make_table(), but the make_file() method produces a fully-formed HTML file as output.
import difflib from difflib_data import * d = difflib.HtmlDiff() print d.make_table(text1_lines, text2_lines)
The output produces a table like the one below. (I have modified the styles slightly to make the table work on this blog.)
| f | 1 | Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Integer | f | 1 | Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Integer |
| n | 2 | eu lacus accumsan arcu fermentum euismod. Donec pulvinar porttitor | n | 2 | eu lacus accumsan arcu fermentum euismod. Donec pulvinar, porttitor |
| 3 | tellus. Aliquam venenatis. Donec facilisis pharetra tortor. In nec | 3 | tellus. Aliquam venenatis. Donec facilisis pharetra tortor. In nec | ||
| 4 | mauris eget magna consequat convallis. Nam sed sem vitae odio | 4 | mauris eget magna consequat convallis. Nam cras vitae mi vitae odio | ||
| 5 | pellentesque interdum. Sed consequat viverra nisl. Suspendisse arcu | 5 | pellentesque interdum. Sed consequat viverra nisl. Suspendisse arcu | ||
| 6 | metus, blandit quis, rhoncus ac, pharetra eget, velit. Mauris | 6 | metus, blandit quis, rhoncus ac, pharetra eget, velit. Mauris | ||
| 7 | urna. Morbi nonummy molestie orci. Praesent nisi elit, fringilla ac, | 7 | urna. Morbi nonummy molestie orci. Praesent nisi elit, fringilla ac, | ||
| 8 | suscipit non, tristique vel, mauris. Curabitur vel lorem id nisl porta | 8 | suscipit non, tristique vel, mauris. Curabitur vel lorem id nisl porta | ||
| t | 9 | adipiscing. Suspendisse eu lectus. In nunc. Duis vulputate tristique | t | 9 | adipiscing. Duis vulputate tristique enim. Donec quis lectus a justo |
| 10 | enim. Donec quis lectus a justo imperdiet tempus. | 10 | imperdiet tempus. Suspendisse eu lectus. In nunc. |
Junk Data:
All of the functions which produce diff sequences accept arguments to indicate which lines should be ignored, and which characters within a line should be ignored. This can be used to ignore markup or whitespace changes in two versions of file, for example. The default for Differ is to not ignore any lines or characters explicitly, but to rely on the SequenceMatcher’s ability to detect noise. The default for ndiff is to ignore space and tab characters.
SequenceMatcher:
SequenceMatcher, which implements the comparison algorithm, can be used with sequences of any type of object as long as the object is hashable. For example, two lists of integers can be compared, and using get_opcodes() a set of instructions for converting the original list into the newer can be printed:
import difflib from difflib_data import * s1 = [ 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 4 ] s2 = [ 2, 3, 5, 4, 6, 1 ] matcher = difflib.SequenceMatcher(None, s1, s2) for tag, i1, i2, j1, j2 in matcher.get_opcodes(): print ("%7s s1[%d:%d] (%s) s2[%d:%d] (%s)" % (tag, i1, i2, s1[i1:i2], j1, j2, s2[j1:j2]))
$ python difflib_seq.py delete s1[0:1] ([1]) s2[0:0] ([]) equal s1[1:4] ([2, 3, 5]) s2[0:3] ([2, 3, 5]) insert s1[4:4] ([]) s2[3:4] ([4]) equal s1[4:5] ([6]) s2[4:5] ([6]) replace s1[5:6] ([4]) s2[5:6] ([1])
You can use SequenceMatcher with your own classes, as well as built-in types.
References:
Python Module of the Week Home
Download Sample Code
Pattern Matching: The Gestalt Approach - Discussion of a similar algorithm by John W. Ratcliff and D. E. Metzener published in Dr. Dobb’s Journal in July, 1988.
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