File comparison tool

[Imtiaz Murtaza]

Looking for a good tool to compare two files in order to see the changes. Google yields many results. So want to know that what fellow CPians advice.

Imtiaz

[Stuart Dootson]

WinMerge[^], DiffMerge[^], Beyond Compare[^] First two are free, last isn't.

Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p

[Lost User]

Beyond Compare.

Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.

[Bob Flynn]

Beyond Compare is what I use at work. Kdiff is another favorite of some at my work.

[Dave Parker]

I like the merge tool that comes with Perfoce. Work uses subversion for source control but I still use the merge tool out of perforce with it (which is free).

[Member 96]

Subversion and Tortoise SVN usually because it's a file I'm working on in a project.

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Read a book, here's some good ones[^]

[jeffwask]

Ditto Beyond Compare

[Single Step Debugger]

I second the "Beyond Compare" because it is integrating in the Windows Explorer and can compare binary files.

The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.

[Hans Dietrich]

Araxis Merge is excellent: http://www.araxis.com/merge/[^] Does 2 and 3-way merging. Not free.

Best wishes, Hans

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[Joe Woodbury]

I'll add another vote for Beyond Compare.

Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke

[Rage]

I second this choice. Simply excellent.

~RaGE();

I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb

[ied]

Open a command prompt. type: fc /b file1 file2 -- Ian

[Jani Giannoudis]

Beyond Compare[^] has may nice features: - compare/sync folders - sync from/to zip files (quick way to edit a file within a zip file) - compare sync text files per selection/line - inline text editing, while comparing files - option to ignore unimportant changes, like source code comments - compare images - save/load sessions ... and much more :)

Cheers, Jani [My Articles]

[Yusuf]

second WinMerge and Beyond Compare. Use both regularly

Yusuf Oh didn't you notice, analogous to square roots, they recently introduced rectangular, circular, and diamond roots to determine the size of the corresponding shapes when given the area. Luc Pattyn[^]

[Henrik Husted]

My vote too, best 3 way merge I've ever used. Don't know how anyone can live with only 2 way merge :-)

--- There are 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

[Phil Martin]

It's the second best three-way merge I've used. For complicated diffs I reckon KDiff3[^] has it beat hands down. Things that Araxis had much trouble deciphering KDiff handled fine, and did an automated merge for me, even across directories. It's saved my bacon a number of times.

[Johan Pretorius]

I use Meld [http://meld.sourceforge.net/index.html\]

[PIEBALDconsult]

DIFFERENCES

 Compares the contents of two disk files and displays a listing of
 the records that do not match.

 Format

   DIFFERENCES  input1-filespec \[input2-filespec\]

Oh, you wanted something for DOS/Windows? Can't help you there. :-D