Wdiff is a front end to diff for comparing files on a word per word basis. A word is anything between whitespace. This is useful for comparing two texts in which a few words have been changed and for which paragraphs have been refilled.
It works by creating two temporary files, one word per line, and then executes diff on these files. It collects the diff output and uses it to produce a nicer display of word differences between the original files.
Wdiff2 is intended as a replacement to Wdiff. It aims at supporting the same set of options, but uses mdiff instead of diff as its backend. The programs Wdiff and Wdiff2 aim at providing the same set of command line options.
wdiff is free and open source software.
Website: www.gnu.org/software/wdiff
Support: Mailing List
Developer: François Pinard
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
Wdiff is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Return to Console-Based Diff Tools | Alternatives to cmp
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