Revision as of 05:32, 26 November 2009 edit Nbarth (talk \| contribs) Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers 35,278 edits init		Revision as of 06:20, 26 November 2009 edit undo Nbarth (talk \| contribs) Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers 35,278 edits examples Next edit →
Line 1: In [[computer science]] and [[information theory]], '''data differencing''' is producing a [[difference]] between two sets of data – a source and a target. Formally, a data differencing algorithm takes as input source data and target data, and produces difference data ("differencing"), such that given the source data and the difference data, one can reconstruct the target data ("patching" the source with the difference to produce the target). == Examples == One of the best-known examples of data differencing is the [[diff]] utility, which produces line-by-line differences of [[text file]]s (and in some implementations, [[binary file]]s). Differencing of general binary files goes under the rubric of [[delta encoding]], with a widely-used example being the algorithm used in [[rsync]]. A standardized generic differencing format is [[VCDIFF]], implemented in such utilities as [[Xdelta]]. == Connection with data compression ==

Data differencing: Difference between revisions