Patent ID: 7076486

Claim:
A method for identifying differences between a first file and a second file comprising: pre-processing the first and second files to remove units of comparison, from the first and second files, that are only present in one of the first and second files, the pre-processing comprising: removing, from a sequence of comparison units for the first and second files, comparison units found within only one of the first and second files to render a translated first file and a translated second file, and registering changes to the first and second files, arising during the removing step, within corresponding first and second translation tables; executing a difference search upon the translated first file and translated second file to render a preliminary description of differences between the translated first file and translated second file; and post-processing the preliminary description of differences to introduce, in accordance with unit sequence positions recorded in the first and second translation tables, differences corresponding to the comparison units found within only one of the first and second files that were previously removed during the pre-processing step.