I want to compare two folders, each having about 5-6 thousands files and folders. Among these probably 0.1% would be actually different but WinMerge first shows all files saying "text files are different" and when I open these files one by one it opens a dialog saying contents in both files are the same. It is nearly impossible for me to find files actually having different text, in this way.
First, I tried to set options but no success.
Then, I thought this initial difference may be due to different time stamps. So I made all file time stamps (create, last modified and last accessed ) exactly the same but the result is the still same.
Am I missing something? Or is there any way to filter the list so that I may see only the files with some difference? Or any other idea?
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Are you ignoring white space when viewing each file?– OdedAug 9, 2010 at 19:25
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YES, I am ignoring both white spaces and different line feeds– SJPAug 10, 2010 at 1:50
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Try Beyond Compare.– Greg HewgillAug 10, 2010 at 9:45
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For anyone still finding this question and still needing an answer, pls see the answer from @dog44wgm below, who suggests simply upgrading to a newer version of Winmerge.– UncaAlbyAug 18, 2020 at 18:27
5 Answers
I would have thought that WinMerge with the following settings would work:
If it doesn't, I would ask the question in their forums.
I believe this is worth the effort, as WinMerge is my best file-compare product.
Try setting the Compare option "Ignore carriage return differences".
Differences in line endings (CRLF/CR/LF) are the usual suspect when one mode of comparison (binary) reports differences but another mode (text) claims that the files are the same.
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Its already like this.– SJPAug 9, 2010 at 22:03
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You are right @brian, there is really a line feed difference in most of the files that winmerge is not ignoring in first pass.– SJPAug 10, 2010 at 2:46
Try with the software called 'Beyond Compare'.
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1Seems to be a good one, but I had to change a few settings (essentially, removing the quick compare rules on file size & timestamp) to avoid having the "not so different files" highlit in my compare. The fact that it's non-free isn't that much of a problem, since a 30 days trial is available (and this soft is probably worth the few bucks it costs), but it raises a few uncertainties about the available functionnalities if one isn't intending to spend money on it. Jan 11, 2018 at 16:39
I had the same problem with WinMerge 2.14. So I tried WinMerge 2.16.2, problem solved.
You might want to try ECMerge or Araxis as well. They both have appropriate settings to ignore spaces / CRLF.