Best tool to compare two linux source codes

Rob Gaddi wrote:

>> If piyushpandey doesn't reply: I consider "fire and forget" criticism
>> rather bad habit.
>> 
>> Rob Gaddi's post would also be much more useful if he told us which
>> tools he compared and _what_ he liked/disliked.
>> 
>> I will look for my notices when I compared comparison tools and post
>> them here. It may take a day or two.
>
>Oliver, I'd have loved to, but somehow eternal-september was lunched
>and I couldn't get my post out before leaving for a wedding.

thanks for the reminder - I forgot to share my information about
Beyond Compare.

>At this point, I don't recall.  vimdiff, a couple others, free
>stuff only though.  Back when I ran Windows I tended to use WinMerge,
>and gave a shot when I switched over to using WinMerge through Wine,
>but it was flaky.  Mostly, what I liked about meld is that the
>interface is clean; the learning curve is about 10 seconds.

I see.

The capabilities of Beyond Compare (BC) are comprehensive, so even
with a clean interface, you need time to learn.

I work with BC since many years, therefore my comparison will always
miss some "not so obvious" pros of other tools. That's why I'm
interested in other people's experience with these.

A good folder/file comparison tool is the swiss army knife needed
every day, for many tasks. Therefore I want a good, powerful tool.

Some features of BC (the order is no ranking):

File format filters: You can place any processing between the original
file and the display. For example, PmWiki (a CMS I'm using) encodes
line endings in page files. With a simple SED/Perl/whatever-script,
you can convert it easily to readable format. Of course, filters for
standard formats are shipped with BC or ready for download: PDF,
Office and so on. Sorting of files (before comparison) is built-in.

Include and exclude filters: Tell BC which files and directories to
process or ignore.

(S)FTP with real editing capability on remote files (Ultra Compare
uses a local copy being uploaded after editing, not so elegant).

You can edit directly in the comparison windows. This way, you can
adjust line wrapping or have even more control while merging changes.
Also great for working with configuration files! Compare the config
file with a template and adjust the settings interactively.

Archives (gz, zip...) are handled like folders, you can move files
between archives etc. Of course, you can also edit files in archives.

Processing of file metadata: Copy time stamps of identical files from
one side to the other. Handle permissions and so on.

Viewers for many file formats. For example ID3 tags in mp3 files. Of
course binary data, csv/tsv and so on.

Powerful picture comparison with stretch, zoom, pan, many difference
modes...

Scripting / batch processing.

And much more I don't recall.

The development of BC is a bit slow in the last years, but that's a
luxury problem. The upcoming version will support WebDAV, Subversion
and Dropbox. Maybe we'll get handling of file renames/moves some day.
Or IMAP support, MTP

Oliver
-- 
Oliver Betz, Munich
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