Is there a ready solution to typeset a diff file?

Question

In a text about Git I want to typeset diffs similar to this visualization: Commit details on GitHub.

Is there any ready-made solution to that, especially the coloring of the diff lines? (In other commits there may be even an additional highlighting of the actual changed part of a line with a different background color.

Of course I could 'roll my own' but don't want to reinvent the wheel.

(Searching for LaTeX and diff only seems to mathematical symbols or how to diff LaTeX documents ...)

Answer 1

You can also use listings. You must define an own language with own colour settings. The lines with special characters are defined as comment lines here:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[svgnames]{xcolor}
  \definecolor{diffstart}{named}{Grey}
  \definecolor{diffincl}{named}{Green}
  \definecolor{diffrem}{named}{OrangeRed}

\usepackage{listings}
  \lstdefinelanguage{diff}{
    basicstyle=\ttfamily\small,
    morecomment=[f][\color{diffstart}]{@@},
    morecomment=[f][\color{diffincl}]{+\ },
    morecomment=[f][\color{diffrem}]{-\ },
  }

\begin{document}

\begin{lstlisting}[language=diff]
@@ -85,8 +85,8 @@
\newcommand{\doctitleifsub}[2]{%
  \thispagestyle{empty}
  \begin{center}
-    \sffamily This document is part of the documentation of \openlilylib%
-    \footnote{\url{https://github.com/openlilylib/openLilyLib}},\\
+    \sffamily This document is part of \textbf{\openlilylib}%
+    \footnote{\url{http://www.openlilylib.org}},\\
    a collection of resources for the LilyPond notation software%
    \footnote{\url{http://www.lilypond.org}}\\
    and the \LaTeX{} typesetting system.
\end{lstlisting}

\end{document}

Answer 2

Using the verbatim package you can easily apply formatting to each line, so this just extracts the first character and uses it as part of a colour name to use for the highlighting.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{verbatim,color}
\makeatletter

\long\def\diffcolor#1#2\@nil{color\string#1diff}

\def\verbatim@processline{%
\nointerlineskip\noindent\rlap{%
\colorbox{\expandafter\diffcolor\next..\@nil}{%
\the\verbatim@line}}\par}
\makeatother

\definecolor{color diff}{rgb}{1,1,1}
\definecolor{color-diff}{rgb}{1,.5,.5}
\definecolor{color+diff}{rgb}{.5,1,.5}

\begin{document}



\verbatiminput{diffex.diff}

\end{document}

Answer 3

The vim module for ConTeXt uses the VIM editor to do the syntax highlighting of files. As such it supports all syntax highlighting for all filetypes supported by VIM (which is a lot). For example, to highlight diff files, you may use:

\usemodule[vim]

\definevimtyping[DIFFtyping][syntax=diff]

\starttext
\startDIFFtyping
@@ -85,8 +85,8 @@
 \newcommand{\doctitleifsub}[2]{%
   \thispagestyle{empty}
   \begin{center}
-    \sffamily This document is part of the documentation of \openlilylib%
-    \footnote{\url{https://github.com/openlilylib/openLilyLib}},\\
+    \sffamily This document is part of \textbf{\openlilylib}%
+    \footnote{\url{http://www.openlilylib.org}},\\
     a collection of resources for the LilyPond notation software%
     \footnote{\url{http://www.lilypond.org}}\\
     and the \LaTeX{} typesetting system. 
\stopDIFFtyping
\stoptext

which gives

Full disclosure: I am author of the vim module.

Answer 4

You can use verbments, provided you have Pygmentize on your machine:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{verbments}
\begin{document}
\begin{pyglist}[language=diff]
@@ -85,8 +85,8 @@
 \newcommand{\doctitleifsub}[2]{%
   \thispagestyle{empty}
   \begin{center}
-    \sffamily This document is part of the documentation of \openlilylib%
-    \footnote{\url{https://github.com/openlilylib/openLilyLib}},\\
+    \sffamily This document is part of \textbf{\openlilylib}%
+    \footnote{\url{http://www.openlilylib.org}},\\
     a collection of resources for the LilyPond notation software%
     \footnote{\url{http://www.lilypond.org}}\\
     and the \LaTeX{} typesetting system.
\end{pyglist}
\end{document}

Running LaTeX with -shell-escape enabled is required.

Answer 5

I took a combination of this answer and this answer to get a listings environment closer to the git diff visualizations, with coloured line backgrounds rather than coloured text.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{xcolor}

\usepackage{listings}

\newcommand{\lstbg}[3][0pt]{{\fboxsep#1\colorbox{#2}{\strut #3}}}
\lstdefinelanguage{diff}{
  basicstyle=\ttfamily\small,
  morecomment=[f][\lstbg{red!20}]-,
  morecomment=[f][\lstbg{green!20}]+,
  morecomment=[f][\textit]{@@},
  %morecomment=[f][\textit]{---},
  %morecomment=[f][\textit]{+++},
}

\begin{document}

\begin{lstlisting}[language=diff]
@@ -85,8 +85,8 @@
\newcommand{\doctitleifsub}[2]{%
  \thispagestyle{empty}
  \begin{center}
-    \sffamily This document is part of the documentation of \openlilylib%
-    \footnote{\url{https://github.com/openlilylib/openLilyLib}},\
+    \sffamily This document is part of \textbf{\openlilylib}%
+    \footnote{\url{http://www.openlilylib.org}},\
     a collection of resources for the LilyPond notation software%
     \footnote{\url{http://www.lilypond.org}}\
     and the \LaTeX{} typesetting system.
\end{lstlisting}

\end{document}