ripdiff

A terminal-based directory comparison tool built with Rust and Ratatui.

Description

ripdiff is a fast, parallel file tree diffing tool that displays directory differences in an interactive terminal UI. It compares two directories side-by-side, allowing you to navigate file trees and view file contents directly in your terminal.

Features

• File or directory input - Accepts both files and directories as arguments
• Parallel file discovery - Uses rayon and ignore for fast directory traversal
• Side-by-side comparison - View file contents from both directories simultaneously
• Interactive TUI - Navigate file trees with keyboard controls
• Real-time file viewing - Open and scroll through file contents
• Expandable directory tree - Navigate nested folder structures on-the-fly

Installation

cargo build --release

Usage

ripdiff <old_directory|old_file> <new_directory|new_file>

Keybindings

Key	Action
↑/↓	Navigate file list
Enter	Open selected file/directory
←/→	Adjust filename display offset
PageUp/↓	Scroll file contents
k/j	Scroll file diff content
Tab	Toggle file sidebar
Esc	Exit

Architecture

src/
├── main.rs      # Entry point: parses args and runs the app
├── lib.rs       # Module declarations
├── app.rs       # CLI argument parsing (clap) and app orchestration
├── state.rs     # TuiState struct, file/navigation logic, unit tests
├── ui.rs        # Event loop and keyboard input handling
├── render.rs    # TUI rendering (file list, diff panes, layout)
├── diff.rs      # Diff computation engine (get_file_diff)
├── walker.rs    # Parallel directory walker (MultiVisitor)
└── config.rs    # Theme/color configuration

Dependencies

• ratatui - Terminal UI framework
• clap - CLI argument parsing
• anyhow - Error handling
• diffy - Diff generation
• ignore - Fast file tree walking
• rayon - Parallel data processing
• crossterm - Cross-platform terminal manipulation