json-pretty-diff 1.0.0

HTML-only diff generator for top-level JSON objects

json-pretty-diff

Made with love by Javier Lianes García in Aranjuez ❤️

Note: Version 1.0.0 is the final stable release. No further development is planned.

Overview

Generate a clean HTML report that summarizes the top-level differences between two JSON files. The report groups keys into Added, Removed, and Changed sections to make the impact of the updates easy to scan.

Installation

From PyPI (recommended)

1. Ensure Python 3.9 or newer is available on your system.
2. Install the package:

   pip install json-pretty-diff
   

3. Run the CLI to compare two JSON files:

   jpd original.json updated.json -o diff.html
   

4. Open diff.html in your browser to explore the report.

From source

1. Clone this repository.
2. Install the package in editable mode:

   pip install -e .
   

Usage

Run the command-line tool and point it to the files you want to compare:

jpd A.json B.json -o diff.html

Options

Flag	Description
-o, --output	Path to the output HTML file. When omitted, HTML is printed to stdout.
--open	Open the generated HTML report in the default browser (requires -o).
-q, --quiet	Suppress all output except errors.
--no-style	Generate HTML without CSS styles (lighter output).
--version	Show program version and exit.

Exit codes

• 0: no differences were detected (an HTML report is still generated showing "No differences").
• 1: differences were found and the HTML describes every change.
• 2: an error occurred (missing file, invalid JSON, or a root element that is not a JSON object) and no HTML report is produced.

Example

jpd fixtures/base.json fixtures/update.json -o reports/diff.html

The file diff.html will contain one section per change category with simple styles that highlight added, removed, or modified keys.

Limitations

• Only the first-level keys are compared (no recursive diff).
• There are no exclusions, tolerances, or advanced configuration flags.
• Console output never uses ANSI colors.
• There is no CI/CD integration or bundled automated test suite.