Text::Diff::HTML(3)

Name
Text::Diff::HTML - XHTML format for Text::Diff::Unified

Synopsis
    use Text::Diff;

    my $diff = diff "file1.txt", "file2.txt", { STYLE => 'Text::Diff::HTML' };
    my $diff = diff \$string1,   \$string2,   { STYLE => 'Text::Diff::HTML' };
    my $diff = diff \*FH1,       \*FH2,       { STYLE => 'Text::Diff::HTML' };
    my $diff = diff \&reader1,   \&reader2,   { STYLE => 'Text::Diff::HTML' };
    my $diff = diff \@records1,  \@records2,  { STYLE => 'Text::Diff::HTML' };
    my $diff = diff \@records1,  "file.txt",  { STYLE => 'Text::Diff::HTML' };

Description
This class subclasses Text::Diff::Unified, a formatting class provided by the Text::Diff module, to add XHTML markup to the unified diff format. For details on the interface of the "diff()" function, see the Text::Diff documentation.

In the XHTML formatted by this module, the contents of the diff returned by "diff()" are wrapped in a "<div>" element, as is each hunk of the diff. Within each hunk, all content is properly HTML encoded using HTML::Entities, and the various sections of the diff are marked up with the appropriate XHTML elements. The elements used are as follows:

•   "<div class="file">"

    This element contains the entire contents of the diff "file" returned by "diff()". All of the following elements are subsumed by this one.

    •   "<span class="fileheader">"

        The header section for the files being "diff"ed, usually something like:

          --- in.txt    Thu Sep  1 12:51:03 2005
          +++ out.txt   Thu Sep  1 12:52:12 2005

        This element immediately follows the opening "file" "<div>" element.

    •   "<div class="hunk">"

        This element contains a single diff "hunk". Each hunk may contain the following elements:

        •   "<span class="hunkheader">"

            Header for a diff hunk. The hunk header is usually something like:

              @@ -1,5 +1,7 @@

            This element immediately follows the opening "hunk" "<div>" element.

        •   "<span class="ctx">"

            Context around the important part of a "diff" hunk. These are contents that have not changed between the files being "diff"ed.

        •   "<ins>"

            Inserted content, each line starting with "+".

        •   "<del>"

            Deleted content, each line starting with "-".

        •   "<span class="hunkfooter">"

            The footer section of a hunk; contains no contents.

    •   "<span class="filefooter">"

        The footer section of a file; contains no contents.

You may do whatever you like with these elements and classes; I highly recommend that you style them using CSS. You'll find an example CSS file in the eg directory in the Text-Diff-HTML distribution. You will also likely want to wrap the output of your diff in its own element (a "<div>" will do) styled with "white-space: pre".

See Also

Text::Diff
Algorithm::Diff

Support
This module is stored in an open GitHub repository <http://github.com/theory/text-diff-html/>. Feel free to fork and contribute!

Please file bug reports via GitHub Issues <http://github.com/theory/text-diff-html/issues/> or by sending mail to bug-Text-Diff-HTML@rt.cpan.org <mailto:bug-Text-Diff-HTML@rt.cpan.org>.

Author
David E. Wheeler <david@justatheory.com>

Currently maintained by the developers of The Perl Shop <tps@cpan.org>.

Copyright and License
Copyright (c) 2005-2011 David E. Wheeler. Some Rights Reserved.

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.