php man page for xdiff_string_diff

XDIFF_STRING_DIFF(3)							 1						      XDIFF_STRING_DIFF(3)

xdiff_string_diff - Make unified diff of two strings

SYNOPSIS
       string xdiff_string_diff (string  $old_data, string  $new_data, [int  $context = 3], [bool  $minimal = false])

DESCRIPTION
	Makes  an  unified  diff containing differences between $old_data string and $new_data string and returns it. The resulting diff is human-
       readable. An optional $context parameter specifies how many lines of context should be added around each change. Setting $minimal parameter
       to true will result in outputting the shortest patch file possible (can take a long time).

PARAMETERS
	      o $old_data
		- First string with data. It acts as "old" data.

	      o $new_data
		- Second string with data. It acts as "new" data.

	      o $context
		- Indicates how many lines of context you want to include in the diff result.

	      o $minimal
		- Set this parameter to TRUE if you want to minimalize the size of the result (can take a long time).

RETURN VALUES
	Returns string with resulting diff or FALSE if an internal error happened.

EXAMPLES
       Example #1

	      xdiff_string_diff(3) example

	       The following code makes unified diff of two articles.

	      <?php
	      $old_article = file_get_contents('./old_article.txt');
	      $new_article = $_REQUEST['article']; /* Let's say that someone pasted a new article to html form */

	      $diff = xdiff_string_diff($old_article, $new_article, 1);
	      if (is_string($diff)) {
		  echo "Differences between two articles:
";
		  echo $diff;
	      }

	      ?>

NOTES
       Note

	       This  function  doesn't	work well with binary strings. To make diff of binary strings use xdiff_string_bdiff(3)/xdiff_string_rabd-
	      iff(3).

SEE ALSO
       xdiff_string_patch(3).

PHP Documentation Group 												      XDIFF_STRING_DIFF(3)