I need to write a simple source control system and wonder what algorithm I would use for file differences?
I don’t want to look into existing source code due to license concerns. I need to have it licensed under MPL so I can’t look at any of the existing systems like CVS or Mercurial as they are all GPL licensed.
Just to give some background, I just need some really simple functions – binary files in a folder. no subfolders and every file behaves like it’s own repository. No Metadata except for some permissions.
Overall really simple stuff, my single concern really is how to store only the differences of a file from revision to revision without wasting too much space but also without being too inefficient (Maybe store a full version every X changes, a bit like Keyframes in Videos?)
Longest Common Subsequence algorithms are the primary mechanism used by diff-like tools, and can be leveraged by a source code control system.
“Reverse Deltas” are a common approach to storage, since you primarily need to move backwards in time from the most recent revision.