1) What's the diff logic? At first glance, it looks like JSON is reformatted (maybe canonicalized in some way) and then a line-by-line diff is applied. Is there more to it? Since the tool seems JSON-aware, I was surprised to see an added trailing comma up as a difference.
2) Do you have plans to expand the kind of HTTP requests users can make? It would be nice to use different verbs, headers, and request bodies. Runscope has a similar tool[0] built in that I believe (haven't tried it yet) allows a bit more flexibility, but it would be nice to have a standalone tool available.
1) the diff is really simple, line by line and text based. I'm
just using this really awesome library to do it: https://github.com/kpdecker/jsdiff The JSON is just being pretty printed to be able to do a text diff in a meaningful way.
2) Yes, I do, and thanks for the suggestions! But I just wanted to go with the minimal version first and see if people found it useful.
I didn't know about Runscope's diffing feature. Btw, I'm using a HTTPBin for the sample requests, which is a Runscope project as far as I know :)
icdiff is also nice to have a side-by-side colored diff (https://github.com/jeffkaufman/icdiff). And of course, you could use meld, vimdiff, kompare etc. with the same bash anonymous pipes indirection.
Httpdiff is a really good tool and way more powerful than mine.
I've used it multiple times and wanted to try making something that focused more on the request body (which in Httpdiff are saved to temporary files) and that was also a bit more visual than a CLI.
Right. I was aiming to do it client-side only but I found out that web browsers restrict the headers you have access to through cross-origin XHR requests [1][2].
So it was a trade-off and I preferred showing all the headers at the expense of having to proxy the calls through a server.
It's pretty easy to write a recursive diff function that compares JSON strings, in order to avoid the JSON -> diff by line hack that you're doing. But it's a clever hack that easily translates to the command-line.
Just the other day I needed something similar and was disappointed that I could find it.
I wanted to discuss something with a remote colleague and to illustrate it I wanted a visual diff of two files. I was hoping there was a nice little web app offering this but I was forced to screenshare (I could have terminal-shared but it was more hassle).
I was hoping for something like Etherpad but with a live visual diff.
It renders a set of pages in a headless browser, compares them visually and alerts you if something changed.
Just a few lines of bash as you can see. But it turned out to be pretty useful. UrlDiff is a regular part of our regression testing at Product Chart now.
Not working on Safari Version 8.0.6 (10600.6.3) Mac OS X 10.10.3
From JS Console:
[Error] TypeError: undefined is not a function (evaluating 'Array.from(e)')
_toConsumableArray2 (app.min.js.pagespeed.ce.ozGaCBt6Kj.js, line 1)
s (app.min.js.pagespeed.ce.ozGaCBt6Kj.js, line 1)
f (app.min.js.pagespeed.ce.ozGaCBt6Kj.js, line 1)
onload (app.min.js.pagespeed.ce.ozGaCBt6Kj.js, line 1)
If you're looking for something similar, but with more features that natively understand HTTP, check out www.runscope.com. Full disclosure, I'm an employee and proud of what we've built!
35 comments
[ 7.0 ms ] story [ 77.3 ms ] threadTwo questions:
1) What's the diff logic? At first glance, it looks like JSON is reformatted (maybe canonicalized in some way) and then a line-by-line diff is applied. Is there more to it? Since the tool seems JSON-aware, I was surprised to see an added trailing comma up as a difference.
2) Do you have plans to expand the kind of HTTP requests users can make? It would be nice to use different verbs, headers, and request bodies. Runscope has a similar tool[0] built in that I believe (haven't tried it yet) allows a bit more flexibility, but it would be nice to have a standalone tool available.
[0] http://blog.runscope.com/posts/comparing-http-requests-using...
1) the diff is really simple, line by line and text based. I'm just using this really awesome library to do it: https://github.com/kpdecker/jsdiff The JSON is just being pretty printed to be able to do a text diff in a meaningful way.
2) Yes, I do, and thanks for the suggestions! But I just wanted to go with the minimal version first and see if people found it useful.
I didn't know about Runscope's diffing feature. Btw, I'm using a HTTPBin for the sample requests, which is a Runscope project as far as I know :)
https://blog.twitter.com/2015/diffy-testing-services-without...
diff <(curl -sS -L https://httpbin.org/get) <(curl -sS -L https://httpbin.org/get?show_env=1)
diff -u <(curl -sS -D - -L https://httpbin.org/get) <(curl -sS -D - -L https://httpbin.org/get?show_env=1) | colordiff
icdiff is also nice to have a side-by-side colored diff (https://github.com/jeffkaufman/icdiff). And of course, you could use meld, vimdiff, kompare etc. with the same bash anonymous pipes indirection.
(1) Terminal based
(2) Supported other types of HTTP requests
(3) Supported request body
(4) Allowed editing request headers
(5) Wasn't so easily exploitable to be used as a proxy or a DDoS relay (server-side bummer):
http://requestdiff.com/proxy?url1=https://www.amazon.com&url...
(disclosure: I work for Apiary.io)
For people wanting to have a CLI tool instead, John Graham-Cumming's httpdiff might be worth looking at. https://github.com/jgrahamc/httpdiff
Httpdiff is a really good tool and way more powerful than mine.
I've used it multiple times and wanted to try making something that focused more on the request body (which in Httpdiff are saved to temporary files) and that was also a bit more visual than a CLI.
Btw, here is the code! https://github.com/vdel26/requestdiff
So it was a trade-off and I preferred showing all the headers at the expense of having to proxy the calls through a server.
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/XMLHttpRequest/#the-getallresponseheade...
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/cors/#cross-origin-request
I will make it available on Github later, so that you at least have the option of running it yourself.
(disclosure: I work for Apiary.io)
Just the other day I needed something similar and was disappointed that I could find it.
I wanted to discuss something with a remote colleague and to illustrate it I wanted a visual diff of two files. I was hoping there was a nice little web app offering this but I was forced to screenshare (I could have terminal-shared but it was more hassle).
I was hoping for something like Etherpad but with a live visual diff.
http://www.productchart.com/blog/2015-07-19-urldiff
It renders a set of pages in a headless browser, compares them visually and alerts you if something changed.
Just a few lines of bash as you can see. But it turned out to be pretty useful. UrlDiff is a regular part of our regression testing at Product Chart now.
From JS Console:
[Error] TypeError: undefined is not a function (evaluating 'Array.from(e)') _toConsumableArray2 (app.min.js.pagespeed.ce.ozGaCBt6Kj.js, line 1) s (app.min.js.pagespeed.ce.ozGaCBt6Kj.js, line 1) f (app.min.js.pagespeed.ce.ozGaCBt6Kj.js, line 1) onload (app.min.js.pagespeed.ce.ozGaCBt6Kj.js, line 1)
A daemon that sends to two backends, and diffs the results.
http://www.pixelbeat.org/scripts/urldiff http://www.pixelbeat.org/scripts/idiff
See also mergely which supports diffing URLs: http://pixelbeat/programming/diffs/#mergely
vimdiff <(curl -s "https://httpbin.org/get") <(curl -s "https://httpbin.org/get?show_env=1")
It takes some getting used to but once you go vimdiff you'll never go back.