GumTree

GumTree is a neat tool to visualize differences between source code files.

Description

Compared to the classic diff tools (such as Meld, KDiff3, etc...), GumTree has two particularties :

it works on a tree structure rather than a text structure,
it can detect moved or renamed elements in addition of deleted and inserted elements.

Thanks to these two features, GumTree is able to compute and show kick-ass diffs that will allow you to understand faster what changed between the two code files. GumTree comes with two GUIs (a web based and a Java swing based), and is compatible with several languages: Java, JavaScript, Ruby, C and R. More languages are coming soon, if you want to help contact me.

Installation

From downloadable Jar

Download the gumtree.jar file and that's it! For a more confortable use, do not hesitate to put it in a directory in the path and to create a shell (or bat) script that will create a shortcurt to the command java -jar gumtree.jar.

From source

Note that you need Maven to compile GumTree. You can clone GumTree with the following command: git clone https://github.com/GumTreeDiff/gumtree.git. Then go into the cloned folder and run the command mvn install. The gumtree.jar is generated in the client/target folder.

Usage

Using GumTree is really easy... The classical command is java -jar gumtree.jar file1.java file2.java. This command will compute the diff between file1.java and file2.java, and launch a local web server that will show you the output of the diff. This server is accessible via the URL http://localhost:4754/. If you want to try the Java swing GUI, you can use the command java -jar gumtree.jar --output swing file1.java file2.java instead.

Git integration

To use GumTree within git you can use the following command :

git difftool -x gumtree --d

You can also set gumtree as the default diff tool by adding this content in ~/.gitconfig :

[diff]
tool = gumtree

[difftool "gumtree"]
cmd = gumtree $LOCAL $REMOTE

and then use git difftool -d.

Mercurial integration

You can also set gumtree as a diff tool by adding this content in ~/.hgrc:

[extensions]
hgext.extdiff =

[extdiff]
cmd.gumtree =

and then use hg gumtree.

matthieu-foucault/gumtree