latexdiff: changes in bibliography with BibLaTeX and Biber

Question

latexdiff is able to highlight differences in the bibliography when the content of the bbl generated by BibTeX is included in the document.

I've been trying to unsuccessfully do the same with BibLaTeX and Biber, i.e. including the the bbl generated by Biber into the document using Herbert's approach here.

But it does not work. For example, when there is a change in the title of an article, latexdiff generates the following:

      \DIFdelbegin %DIFDELCMD < \field{title}{{Do Consumers Choose the Right Credit Contracts?}}
%DIFDELCMD <       %%%
\DIFdelend \DIFaddbegin \field{title}{{Does this work? Do Consumers Choose the Right Credit Contracts?}}
      \DIFaddend \field{year}{2006}

Which just produces the new title ("Does this work? Do...).

Is there a way to show changes when the bibliography is produced by BibLaTeX and Biber?

Answer 1

To generate useful diffs on bibliography, one needs to:

• version generated .bbl files in addition to bibliography source files,
• use the --flatten option to check them out in case you use version control scripts for latexdiff such as latexdiff-git.

From the latexdiff manual on --flatten option:

If you use bibtex, it is recommended to include the .bbl file in the version management.

Answer 2

In most situations, including the example you give of a minor change to the title, the following should work

latexdiff --append-textcmd=field ...

In certain cases, when more extensive changes occur in the bibliography, I could imagine that this will result in doubled \field{title} entries (once in the deleted part, and once in the added part). I don't know whether this would cause problems for biber.