I don't think diff will perform well on two 4gb inputs. I agree there should be a modular approach, but I don't think flat text is the best lowest-common-denom

I don't think diff will perform well on two 4gb inputs. I agree there should be a modular approach, but I don't think flat text is the best lowest-common-denominator. Your proposal would certainly work for a lot of cases though, and it is very unix-y!