Comparing files that differ by extension .php and php5

Question

I have a situation that I need to have files with .php5 extension on the server to use php version 5, otherwise php version 4 is used (with .php extension).

I started the development locally with .php extension and created a script that copies the modified files (to a local pre-deployment folder) and renames the extension while copying.

Eventually I run into the situation that I needed to modify some of the local .php5 files.

Now I would like to compare the local files between my development (.php) and pre-deployment (.php5) folders. The files have the same names but different extensions.

Is there a way to do this with existing tools? I use WinMerge, but am not sure if such compare is possible (well I can compare 2 different-named files, but I would like to do a directory-compare).

I realize now that maybe I am over-complicating things and should just develop with .php5 files locally.

Answer 1

Ok, sorry for spamming a bit, but putting this out "on paper" seems to have helped me to come to some solution. And this could count as an answer :)

First of all, I decided that I can check my subversion for what was checked in last, so I can determine last changed files, if needed I can compare them (they're not so many).

And another point, I could probably modify my script (as it is already traversing the folder structure) so that it calls winmerge (or in principle other tools that I have seen mentioned in other posts) from command line for all files that need to be checked. I am not sure how this works, but I guess it can at least tell me if the files differ.

UPDATE: I will create a script that changes the extensions on my original files (as I anyway will continue to work with the new file extension) and then I can also use winmerge to check for differences.

Any other comments welcome.