Diff lcs

In computing, diffis a file comparison utility that outputs the differences between twofiles. It is typically used to show the changes between a file and a formerversion of the same file. Diff displays the changes made per line for textfiles.

The operation of diffis based on solving the longest common subsequence problem which is asfollows: Given two sequences A = a1, a2, …, aM, and B =b1, b2, …, bN, find the length, k, of the longestsequence C = c1, c2, …, ck such thatC is a subsequence of both A and B. As an example, if

A = d, y, n, a, m,i, c

and

B = p, r, o, g, r,a, m, m, i, n, g

then the longest common subsequence is a, m, i andhas length 3.

From the longestcommon subsequence it's only a small step to get diff-like output:

dyn-progr+m+c-ng+