simil (the better comm command)

A command line tool to compare two files and print the lines which are similar in both files, featuring extensive configuration options.

simil was built to compare two code files of any programming language to each other with configuration options to make it fit your needs.
However, it can compare any type of text files (.txt, .py, .rs, .c, .cpp, .js, .ts, .toml, ... ).

It says similar instead of the same, bc. it can be configured to only compare certain aspects of a line, e.g. ignoring any leading or trailing whitespace. This comes in handy when comparing code since code style can substancially differ with different coding styles (you can still configure the program to analyze files as-is).

It is comparable to the comm command on *nix systems with options -12 (only print lines found in both files),
but simil allows you to configure the comparison extensively for more accurate results with complex text (like code files) and the output gives you more info about the findings (line numbers of where matches are found in each file and matching blocks of text).

Configuration

command line args

Usage: simil [--abspath] [--noconf [[--ignore-empty] [--trim]] [...] file1 file2

positional arguments:
    file

options:
    -h, --help      Show this help message and exit
    -v, --version   Show version number and exit
    --abspath       Using absolute filepaths (relative to cwd by default)
    --global-conf   Use global config (ignore local)
    --local-conf    Use local config (ignore global)
    --noconf        Do not use simil.toml config
        + --ignore-empty  Omit empty lines in output
        + --trim          Trim whitespace

• --abspath
  This flag allows you to provide absolute paths to the files you want to analyze.
  By default, the filename arguments provided will be treated as relative paths (relative to the current working directory).
• --global-conf
  Use the global config (in exe dir), ignoring the local config file (cwd or parents)
• --local-conf
  Use the local config (in cwd or any parent dir), ignoring the global config (in exe dir)
• --noconf
  Ignore any simil.toml file and configure simil from the command line (or use to compare files as-is)
  • --ignore-empty
    Ignore empty lines in output
  • --trim
    Trim any leading & trailing whitespace from lines for the comparison

simil.toml

The tool can be configured through a simil.toml file.

---

If you do not want to use a config file, you HAVE to set the option --noconfig (or an error will be shown).
You can then set additional options to configure simil from the command line.

---

You have two options setting a simil.toml:

1. Place toml file in same dir as the exe to set a system-wide config for simil
2. Place toml file in the project dir (cwd, dir from where you will invoke simil from)
   or any parent dir to set a config on a per-project (per-dir & sub-dirs) basis.

If you set both, the global config file (in the exe dir) will be used
OR you can set which config to use if both exist with --global-conf or --local-conf.

Structure:

Required structure for simil.toml:

[config]

# lines/statements to ignore
ignore = []

# ignore lines beginning with ...
ignore_beginning = []

# remove any leading & trailing whitespace
trim_whitespace = false

Example for analyzing files:

[config]
# statements to ignore
ignore = [
    "",  # ignore empty lines
    # Python
    "else:",
    "\"\"\"",
    "\"\"\")",
    "'''",
    "(", ")",
    "{", "}",
    "[", "]",
    "})",
    "continue",
    "break",
    "return",
    "print()",
    "print(",
    "print(\"\"\"",
]
# ignore lines beginning with ...
ignore_beginning = [
    # Python
    "import",
    "from",
    # Rust
    # Rust
    "use",
    "/*", "*/",
    "exit",
    "} else {"
]
trim_whitespace = true