Detecting changes in text

Question

I would like to know the name of a Java library which is able to detect changes in text in two text files (or Strings). I want to detect the changes on saving a java source file and ultimately want to know the name of the method on which a changes was performed.

Answer 1

If the details of the change aren't important (just that the files have changed) then you can use a hash (such as MD5) to detect that the change.

Otherwise you should use one of the diff utilities like this and then pair that with a source info library like QDox . You could use the diff utility to determine where the changes are, and then use QDox to determine the method start/end lines that are around the changes.