todiff provides a human-readable diff tool for todo.txt
files.
It can be used with todiff <BEFORE> <AFTER>.
Note that the output is not designed to be parsed by script, thus can change arbitrarily without it being considered a breaking change. Changing the way the executable is called, on the other hand, is considered a breaking change, so that eg. crons can be used to periodically diff.
$ # `git diff` is not really readable…
$ git diff
diff --git a/todo.txt b/todo.txt
index abaea88..ff3147d 100644
--- a/todo.txt
+++ b/todo.txt
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
-2018-03-20 Take over the world t:2022-02-02 due:2033-03-03
-2018-03-20 Call mom due:2018-03-25 rec:1w
-2018-03-20 Pay rent due:2018-04-01 rec:+1m
+2018-03-20 Take over the world t:2022-02-05 due:2033-03-06
+x 2018-03-23 2018-03-20 Call mom due:2018-03-25 rec:1w
+x 2018-03-22 2018-03-20 Pay rent due:2018-04-01 rec:+1m
+2018-03-21 Be happy t:2099-09-09
+2018-03-22 Pay rent due:2018-05-01 rec:+1m
+2018-03-23 Call mom due:2018-03-30 rec:1w
$ # But with todiff it's quite better!
$ git difftool -x todiff -y
New tasks:
→ 2018-03-21 Be happy t:2099-09-09
Changed tasks:
→ 2018-03-20 Take over the world due:2033-03-03 t:2022-02-02
→ Postponed (strict) by 3 days
→ 2018-03-20 Call mom due:2018-03-25 rec:1w
→ Completed on 2018-03-23
→ Recurred (from 2018-03-23)
→ 2018-03-20 Pay rent due:2018-04-01 rec:+1m
→ Completed on 2018-03-22
→ Recurred (strict)
You can then for example have a daily cron similar to this:
#!/bin/sh
cd $MY_TODO_TXT_GIT_REPO
git add todo.txt
git difftool --cached -x todiff -y
git commit -m "$(date -I)"This will automatically send you an email (provided your cron daemon is correctly configured) with all the task changes you did during the day, and commit the todo.txt file for backup as well as future use.
If you have some archival (ie. a done.txt file) setup, you can do similar
things, eg.
#!/bin/sh
cd $MY_TODO_TXT_GIT_REPO
git add todo.txt done.txt
todiff <(git show HEAD:todo.txt HEAD:done.txt) <(git show :todo.txt :done.txt)
git commit -m "$(date -I)"