From: Rogan Dawes <discard@dawes.za.net>
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:27:48 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Show binary file size change in diff --stat
Message-ID: <45E5F3D4.8000509@dawes.za.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0702282042000.22628@wbgn013.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>

Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 28 Feb 2007, Rogan Dawes wrote:
> 
>> How about showing the size of the changes between the 2 files via the 
>> libxdiff binary patch function?
> 
> I briefly considered this, too. But what would it tell you in the case of 
> a jpg? I think it has more disadvantages than advantages...
> 
> Ciao,
> Dscho

It would still tell you the extent of the changes. i.e. Did we change 
only 10 bytes of the file, or is it a dramatic change?

This is exactly what the text statistics show. +(new lines + modified 
lines) -(deleted lines + modified lines)

Instead of having a "line-based" record size, simply use individual 
bytes, since binary files don't have lines (most of them, anyway!).

Rogan