Text::Diff::HTML(3pm)

✨ NAME ✨

Text::Diff::HTML — bestie, this is the XHTML format glow-up for Text::Diff::Unified. 💅

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🎀 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' };

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Okay so listen. This class is a subclass of Text::Diff::Unified — that's a formatting class that comes with the Text::Diff module — and what it does is add XHTML markup on top of the unified diff format. It's giving glow-up, fr fr. 🌈

Wanna know how the diff() function's interface works? Go read the Text::Diff documentation, bestie, it's all there.

So in the XHTML this module spits out, the contents of the diff that diff() returns get wrapped in a "<div>" element, and so does each hunk of the diff. Inside every hunk, all the content is properly HTML encoded using HTML::Entities — no cap, everything's escaped correctly — and the different sections of the diff get marked up with the right XHTML elements. Here's the whole roster of elements, iconic behavior only: 👑

• "<div class="file">" — this one holds the entire contents of the diff "file" that diff() returned. Every single element below lives inside this one. It's the main character, obviously. 💖
  • "<span class="fileheader">" — the header section for the files being "diff"ed. Usually it looks something like this:

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

This element comes immediately after the opening "file" "<div>" element. Right on its heels. 🫶

• "<div class="hunk">" — this one holds a single diff "hunk". And each hunk may contain the following:
  • "<span class="hunkheader">" — the header for a diff hunk. It's usually something like:

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

And this element comes immediately after the opening "hunk" "<div>" element.

• "<span class="ctx">" — the context around the important part of a "diff" hunk. These are the contents that didn't change between the files being "diff"ed. The chill parts. 😌
• "<ins>" — inserted content, and every line of it starts with "+". New stuff, we love to see it. ✨
• "<del>" — deleted content, and every line of it starts with "-". Gone but not forgotten. 💀
• "<span class="hunkfooter">" — the footer section of a hunk. Contains no contents. Empty, but make it fashion. 🎀

• "<span class="filefooter">" — the footer section of a file. Also contains no contents. Also empty, also fashion.

You can do whatever you want with these elements and classes, bestie — but I highly recommend you style them with CSS. It's the move. You'll find an example CSS file chilling in the eg directory of the Text-Diff-HTML distribution. And you'll probably also wanna wrap the output of your diff in its own element (a "<div>" will do the trick) styled with "white-space: pre". Periodt. 💅

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🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

• Text::Diff
• Algorithm::Diff

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🫶 SUPPORT 🫶

This module lives in an open GitHub repository — http://github.com/theory/text-diff-html/. Feel free to fork and contribute, bestie, the door is open! 🚪✨

Please file bug reports via GitHub Issues at http://github.com/theory/text-diff-html/issues/ or by sending mail to bug-Text-Diff-HTML@rt.cpan.org — that's bug-Text-Diff-HTML@rt.cpan.org if you're doing the mailto thing. 🐛📬

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

David E. Wheeler <david@justatheory.com>

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

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💜 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.

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🦋💖✨ — this was perl v5.42.0, dated 2025-07-25, and it's the Text::Diff::HTML(3pm) manual page. slay, go forth and diff pretty. 💅🎀