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WpfHexEditor.Plugins.FileComparison

Project: WpfHexEditor.Plugins.FileComparison License: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 Platform: net8.0-windows (WPF) Default dock: Bottom

Description

The File Comparison plugin provides a side-by-side structural diff of two binary files. Each file is parsed using the automatic format detection engine (400+ format definitions); the extracted named fields are then compared by name and value. Changed, added, and removed fields are color-coded. Summary statistics show the number of matching, added, modified, and removed fields.

Features

  • Structural diff — files are compared at the field level (not raw byte level); each named field is matched by name and its decoded string value is compared.
  • Format auto-detection — FormatDetectionService with JSON format definitions from FormatDefinitions/ is applied to each file independently.
  • Multi-candidate resolution — when more than one format matches a file, a selection dialog (up to 5 candidates) lets the user choose the correct format.
  • Side-by-side display — two synchronized ListView columns, one per file.
  • Diff status coloring — each field row is color-coded: Unchanged, Added, Removed, or Modified.
  • Summary statistics: matching field count, added, modified, and removed fields.
  • Supported primitive value types for field decoding: uint8, uint16, uint32, int16, int32, string/ASCII, UTF-8, and raw hex fallback.
  • ViewModel (FileComparisonPanelViewModel) tracks file names, diff counts, comparison status, and a loading flag.

Panel

Property Value
Panel ID WpfHexEditor.Plugins.FileComparison.Panel.FileComparisonPanel
Default dock side Bottom
View menu entry View > File Comparison

Internal components

Component Responsibility
FileComparisonPanel.xaml(.cs) File picker buttons, side-by-side ListViews, diff logic, statistics labels
FileComparisonPanelViewModel.cs File names, diff counts, comparison status flag
ParsedField Local field model (name, value, type, offset, length)
DiffField Observable diff row model with DiffStatus (Unchanged / Added / Removed / Modified)
FormatSelectionDialog Dialog shown when multiple format candidates are detected

Architecture notes

  • Pattern: MVVM + Strategy — field decoding is a switch expression over the valueType string; the format detection pipeline is injected via FormatDetectionService.
  • Diff algorithm: O(n) dictionary lookup (file 1 fields indexed by name), not an LCS diff — sufficient for named-field comparison where order may vary by format.
  • Metadata-typed blocks (no byte offset) are decoded from the variables dictionary rather than from the raw byte buffer.

Theme compliance

All brushes use DynamicResource tokens from the active global theme.