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Module Diffing

Parametric diffing

This module implements diffing over lists of arbitrary content. It is parameterized by

  • The content of the two lists
  • The equality witness when an element is kept
  • The diffing witness when an element is changed

Diffing is extended to maintain state depending on the computed changes while walking through the two lists.

The underlying algorithm is a modified Wagner-Fischer algorithm (see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner%E2%80%93Fischer_algorithm>).

We provide the following guarantee: Given two lists l and r, if different patches result in different states, we say that the state diverges.

  • We always return the optimal patch on prefixes of l and r on which state does not diverge.
  • Otherwise, we return a correct but non-optimal patch where subpatches with no divergent states are optimal for the given initial state.

More precisely, the optimality of Wagner-Fischer depends on the property that the edit-distance between a k-prefix of the left input and a l-prefix of the right input d(k,l) satisfies

d(k,l) = min ( del_cost + d(k-1,l), insert_cost + d(k,l-1), change_cost + d(k-1,l-1) )

Under this hypothesis, it is optimal to choose greedily the state of the minimal patch transforming the left k-prefix into the right l-prefix as a representative of the states of all possible patches transforming the left k-prefix into the right l-prefix.

If this property is not satisfied, we can still choose greedily a representative state. However, the computed patch is no more guaranteed to be globally optimal. Nevertheless, it is still a correct patch, which is even optimal among all explored patches.

type ('left, 'right, 'eq, 'diff) change =
  1. | Delete of 'left
  2. | Insert of 'right
  3. | Keep of 'left * 'right * 'eq
  4. | Change of 'left * 'right * 'diff

The type of potential changes on a list.

val map : ('l1 -> 'l2) -> ('r1 -> 'r2) -> ('l1, 'r1, 'eq, 'diff) change -> ('l2, 'r2, 'eq, 'diff) change
type ('l, 'r, 'eq, 'diff) patch = ('l, 'r, 'eq, 'diff) change list

A patch is an ordered list of changes.

val diff : weight:(('l, 'r, 'eq, 'diff) change -> int) -> test:('state -> 'l -> 'r -> ('eq, 'diff) result) -> update:(('l, 'r, 'eq, 'diff) change -> 'state -> 'state) -> 'state -> 'l array -> 'r array -> ('l, 'r, 'eq, 'diff) patch

diff ~weight ~test ~update state l r computes the diff between l and r, using the initial state state.

  • test st xl xr tests if the elements xl and xr are compatible (Ok) or not (Error).
  • weight ch returns the weight of the change ch. Used to find the smallest patch.
  • update ch st returns the new state after applying a change.

Variadic diffing

Variadic diffing allows to expand the lists being diffed during diffing.

type ('l, 'r, 'e, 'd, 'state) update =
  1. | Without_extensions of ('l, 'r, 'e, 'd) change -> 'state -> 'state
  2. | With_left_extensions of ('l, 'r, 'e, 'd) change -> 'state -> 'state * 'l array
  3. | With_right_extensions of ('l, 'r, 'e, 'd) change -> 'state -> 'state * 'r array
val variadic_diff : weight:(('l, 'r, 'eq, 'diff) change -> int) -> test:('state -> 'l -> 'r -> ('eq, 'diff) result) -> update:('l, 'r, 'eq, 'diff, 'state) update -> 'state -> 'l array -> 'r array -> ('l, 'r, 'eq, 'diff) patch

variadic_diff ~weight ~test ~update state l r behaves as diff with the following difference:

  • update must now be an update which indicates in which direction the expansion takes place.