diff_chr: Compare two character vectors elementwise

In cli: Helpers for Developing Command Line Interfaces

Compare two character vectors elementwise

Description

Its printed output is similar to calling diff -u at the command line.

Usage

diff_chr(old, new, max_dist = Inf)

Arguments

old	First character vector.
new	Second character vector.
max_dist	Maximum distance to consider, or Inf for no limit. If the LCS edit distance is larger than this, then the function throws an error with class "cli_diff_max_dist". (If you specify Inf the real limit is .Machine$integer.max but to reach this the function would have to run a very long time.)

Value

A list that is a cli_diff_chr object, with a format() and a print() method. You can also access its members:

• old and new are the original inputs,

• lcs is a data frame of LCS edit that transform old into new.

The lcs data frame has the following columns:

• operation: one of "match", "delete" or "insert".

• offset: offset in old for matches and deletions, offset in new for insertions.

• length: length of the operation, i.e. number of matching, deleted or inserted elements.

• old_offset: offset in old after the operation.

• new_offset: offset in new after the operation.

See Also

The diffobj package for a much more comprehensive set of diff-like tools.

Other diff functions in cli: diff_str()

Examples

letters2 <- c("P", "R", "E", letters, "P", "O", "S", "T")
letters2[11:16] <- c("M", "I", "D", "D", "L", "E")
diff_chr(letters, letters2)

cli documentation built on April 12, 2025, 1:41 a.m.