Can your diff(1) do this?! Improving software review & QA with diffoscope
Channel: LinuxConfAu 2018 - Sydney, Australia
Date: 24/01/2018

Chris Lamb

http://lca2018.linux.org.au/schedule/presentation/102/

In an age increasingly concerned with reducing bugs as well as complying with free software licenses, it is vitally important to thoroughly review audit any changes to the software that powers our technology and infrastructure.

However, existing tools to perform comparisons between two versions of a software package are overly-blunt instruments, either providing too much output or none at all. Binaries such as firmware images or precompiled executables are especially problematic: a single change in the source is presented as a meaningless stream of changes, offering no insight into potentially critical bugs. And these are often precisely the files we care most about…!

Diffoscope is different. Developed as part of the Reproducible Builds effort, it gets to the bottom of what makes files truly different. It recursively unpacks archives of all kinds and transforms various formats into human-readable forms for display. It can compare two tarballs, ISO images, PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, etc. just as easily.

This talk explains the varied and practical usages of diffoscope and how this flexible "diff on steroids" is a long-overdue & fun tool for anyone writing or releasing software today.

This talk was given at Linux.conf.au 2018 (LCA2018) which was held on 22-26 January 2018 in Sydney Australia.

linux.conf.au is a conference about the Linux operating system, and all aspects of the thriving ecosystem of Free and Open Source Software that has grown up around it. Run since 1999, in a different Australian or New Zealand city each year, by a team of local volunteers, LCA invites more than 500 people to learn from the people who shape the future of Open Source. For more information on the conference see https://linux.conf.au/

#linux.conf.au #linux #foss #opensource