diff a ruby string or array

For arrays, use the minus operator. For example:

>> foo = [1, 2, 3]
=> [1, 2, 3]
>> goo = [2, 3, 4]
=> [2, 3, 4]
>> foo - goo
=> [1]

Here the last line removes everything from foo that is also in goo, leaving just the element 1. I don't know how to do this for two strings, but until somebody who knows posts about it, you could just convert each string to an array, use the minus operator, and then convert the result back.

diff.rb is what you want, which is available at http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl8950/ruby/diff.html via internet archive:

http://web.archive.org/web/20140421214841/http://users.cybercity.dk:80/~dsl8950/ruby/diff.html

I got frustrated with the lack of a good library for this in ruby, so I wrote http://github.com/samg/diffy. It uses diff under the covers, and focuses on being convenient, and providing pretty output options.