Diffing tools for Mac OSX

Question

Are there tools for diffing without subversion?

Right now I am just writing code on my local but the ability to diff versions would be nice...

Answer 1

If you're looking for GUI-based tools, I've been a fan of Kaleidoscope for a while now. It is non-free, but has a demo.

The Mac version of SourceGear's DiffMerge is free. I've never used the Mac version, but the Windows version is pretty decent. And of course if you install Xcode, you should get FileMerge from Apple, which works in a pinch (although I guess these days it's not technically free as it costs $5 to get Xcode from the Mac App Store, or registration as a Mac or iOS developer for $99/year; I don't know if you can acquire FileMerge individually for free).

You may also want to peruse this StackOverflow thread on OS X diff tools.

Answer 2

Maybe take a look at MacPorts. You could at least install diff through that. There are probably more direct solutions, but MacPorts is pretty awesome.

Answer 3

My favorite diff tool is Araxis Merge which is also cross platform (Macintosh, Windows). It might seem pricy, but I run it before every commit.

Answer 4

If you install Apple Developer Tools on your Mac (available on the Snow Leopard install CD as part of Xcode), you also have a program called 'FileMerge' (/Developer/Applications/Utilities/FileMerge.app) which is quite a nice graphical comparison program.

Of course as mentioned above, you can also use Macports or Fink to install regular *nix diff tools.

Answer 5

I like xxdiff which has a MacOS port, though I've never used it on a Mac.