[NTG-context] Re: automatic character comparison

On 3/5/25 02:27, Bruce Horrocks wrote:

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On 5 Mar 2025, at 01:21, Bruce Horrocks wrote: [...] I'm not aware of anything built-in.

One way would be to use buffers: you enter your text into two buffers ("left" & "right"); compare them using a script which then modifies the buffers to highlight the changes in red or green; and then \getbuffer the buffers from inside the columnset commands to print them.

Many thanks for your reply, Bruce. I think this might be a a feasible approach for me.

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There's a good discussion of comparison algorithms at the link below, including source code in Javascript (but not Lua, unfortunately).

There might be a Lua version (I think) here: https://github.com/google/diff-match-patch.

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However, Context supports Javascript with \startJScode ... \stopJScode so you could try adapting what's there.

https://neil.fraser.name/writing/diff/> Sorry - ignore the JS bit (that's for embedding into the PDF). You'll need to translate Fraser's example code into Lua.

We have https://www.pragma-ade.com/general/manuals/ecmascript-mkiv.pdf, so translating JS to Lua might not be required. Many thanks for your help, Pablo