API to get a formatted diff

[davidbolvansky]

Hello,

I would like to icdiff as python library but now icdiff.diff immediately prints the whole diff. I would like to get a string containing formatted diff, e.g.:

diff = icdiff.diff(a,b)
... some code ...
if (something)
    sys.stdout.write(diff)

Thanks

[jeffkaufman]

It's not ideal, but you can do that by overriding stdout:

import sys
from cStringIO import StringIO

captured_stdout = StringIO()
sys.stdout = captured_stdout
icdiff.diff(a,b)
sys.stdout = sys.__stdout__

... some code ...
if (something):
   sys.stdout.write(captured_stdout.getvalue())

Warning: this is just from reading docs; I haven't tested this.

Warning: I'm not making any promises about icdiff's output staying the same. If you're parsing its output and an update breaks your code, that's on you.