---
layout: post
title: diffoscope 147 released
author: Chris Lamb <lamby@debian.org>
---

The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope
version `147`. This version includes the following changes:

```
[ Chris Lamb ]

* New features:

  - Add output from strings(1) to ELF binaries. It is intended this will
    expose expose build paths that are hidden somewhere within the objdump(1)
    output. (Closes: reproducible-builds/diffoscope#148)
  - Add basic zsh shell tab-completion support.
    (Closes: reproducible-builds/diffoscope#158)

* Bug fixes:

  - Prevent a traceback when comparing a PDF document that does not contain
    any metadata, ie. it is missing a PDF "/Info" stanza.
    (Closes: reproducible-builds/diffoscope#150)
  - Fix compatibility with jsondiff 1.2.0 which was causing a traceback and
    log the version of jsondiff we are using to aid debugging in the future.
    (Closes: reproducible-builds/diffoscope#159
  - Fix an issue in GnuPG keybox handling that left filenames in the diff.
  - Don't mask an existing test name; ie. ensure it is actually run.

* Reporting:

  - Log all calls to subprocess.check_output by using our own wrapper utility.
    (Closes: reproducible-builds/diffoscope#151)

* Code improvements:

  - Replace references to "WF" with "Wagner-Fischer" for clarity.
  - Drop a large number of unused imports (list_libarchive,
    ContainerExtractionError, etc.)
  - Don't assign exception to a variable that we do not use.
  - Compare string values with the equality operator, not via "is" identity.
  - Don't alias an open file to a variable when we don't use it.
  - Don't alias "filter" builtin.
  - Refactor many small parts of the HTML generation, dropping explicit
    u"unicode" strings, tidying the generation of the "Offset X, Y lines
    modified" messages, moving to PEP 498 f-strings where appropriate, etc.
  - Inline a number of single-used utility methods.
```

You find out more by [visiting the project homepage](https://diffoscope.org).