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FileMerge awesome for single-file comparisons
Authored by: carsten on Sep 10, '02 03:37:15AM

Filemerge trashed a couple directories I was comparing too, but fortunetely they were just inimportant test files.

The one redeeming feature of File Merge is the beautiful syncro-scrolling display with diffs highlighted, and the ease of choosing the left or right side to keep by navigating each difference with the arrow keys.

So it is absoluetly fantastic for comparing two files, but I find I have to copy and paste the result from the third pane (below) rather than letting it save directly to a file, I never trusted it for that and even less so now that it's trashing directory comparisons too. Also the previous version didn't handle iso-8859-1 source code (containing extended latin characters like ΓΌ) so it was just overall easier to but and paste the result of a conflict merge.

It's one of those old utilities inherited from NeXT, and it looks like it hasn't been given the attention it deserves to bring it up to date with Mac OS X.



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FileMerge - Needs UNIX line termination
Authored by: phredator on Jun 05, '03 01:17:38PM

I tried FM after it attained prestigious HOTW status, and I really liked the way it presented file compare info (much more elegant than anything else I'd seen). I resolved to use it for actionscript comparisons, and the first time it gave totally bogus results! I was bummed because I had already become attached. It turns out that the file has to have UNIX line termination, then it works well (I use BBedit light to fix the line ends), though, fixing the line ends is a hassle.

Seems to compare folders OK, but the display isn't as intuitive. I haven't ever tried synching with it, so I don't know about it trashing stuff.



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