Line Diff causes an exception

Running the example usage from here on the javascript version:

  const text1="this\n is\n a\n test\n";
  const text2="this\n wasn't\n a\n test\n";
  // Example code "as is":
  var dmp = new diff_match_patch();
  var a = dmp.diff_linesToChars_(text1, text2);
  var lineText1 = a[0];
  var lineText2 = a[1];
  var lineArray = a[2];
  var diffs = dmp.diff_main(lineText1, lineText2, false);
  dmp.diff_charsToLines_(diffs, lineArray);

Causes this exception:

Uncaught Error: Null input. (diff_main) at diff_match_patch.diff_main (<anonymous>:2:190) at <anonymous>:6:19

[NeilFraser]

Your suggestion is optimal for JavaScript and Java where an object is returned, but in other languages such as Python the return value is an array. So I think the code on the wiki is a good compromise, that makes it relatively easy for people to translate the example into the language they are using.

The reason diff_linesToWords is not part of the library is that nobody can agree on the definition of a word. I developed the word count for Google Docs, and learned that it’s a fairly arbitrary number. Open Office, MS Word, and Google Docs all report significantly different word counts for the same non-trivial document. For example, is “coca-cola.com” one or two or three words? And then there’s the nightmare of what to do about CJK languages. If I were to add a word-splitting algorithm to diff-match-patch, I’d end up dealing with conflicting bug reports for the rest of my life. 😃

[urigoren]

Thank you for the swift response, if you’re editing the docs - you might want to use more explicit variable name than a. For example:

function diff_lineMode(text1, text2) {
  var dmp = new diff_match_patch();
  var lineMode = dmp.diff_linesToChars_(text1, text2);
  var diffs = dmp.diff_main(lineMode.chars1, lineMode.chars2, false);
  dmp.diff_charsToLines_(diffs, lineMode.lineArray);
  return diffs;
}

Also, why is diff_linesToWords a part of the docs and not a part of the library itself ?

Thank you so much !