Dirdiff-1.2.
Paul Mackerras
Linuxcare, Inc.
<paulus@linuxcare.com.au>
Dirdiff is a graphical tool for displaying the differences between
directory trees and for merging changes from one tree into another.
Dirdiff can handle up to 5 trees. It displays a main window with a
list of the files which are different between the trees, with colored
squares to indicate the relative ages of the versions. A menu allows
you to display the differences between any two of the versions in
another window. Another menu allows you to copy the file from one
tree to another.
The differences window basically displays the output of `diff -u' with
colored backgrounds to indicate which version each line comes from.
The differences window also has a series of checkboxes which allow you
to selectively apply changes from one version to another. You apply
the selected changes using the merge menu. Dirdiff will then pop up
another window containing the merged file. You can then edit the
merged version and save it back into file.
What's new in dirdiff-1.2.
--------------------------
* The help text and Makefile have been updated, thanks to Martin Pool.
What was new in dirdiff-1.1.
----------------------------
* Dirdiff can now generate a patch containing the differences in a
selected set of files between any two directory trees. See the
File -> Make patch submenu in the main window.
* Some key bindings have been fixed.
* The results of a merge are now put into a window where it can be
inspected and edited, rather than immediately replacing the original
file.
* There is now a find function which can be used in the differences
window, the merge window and the patch window.
* Various bugs have been fixed.
Installation.
-------------
Dirdiff is a Tcl/TK script, so no compilation is required. Dirdiff
however can make use of a shared library called filecmp.so.0.0 for
comparing files. This is optional, but it has two benefits: (a)
comparing files is faster with filecmp.so.0.0 (without it, dirdiff has
to start an external process running `cmp'), and (b) filecmp.so.0.0
can optionally ignore RCS strings when it is comparing two files.
The Makefile in this directory will compile filecmp.so.0.0, and
install it and dirdiff. By default dirdiff is installed in
/usr/local/bin and filecmp.so.0.0 is installed in /usr/local/lib.
Doing `make' will compile filecmp.so.0.0; `make install' will install
dirdiff and filecmp.so.0.0.
However, on many systems, Tcl/Tk does not look in /usr/local/lib for
shared libraries, and so it will not find filecmp.so.0.0. This is not
fatal; the consequences are that it will be a bit slower and that the
`ignore RCS strings' option is not available. One solution is to
install in /usr/bin or /usr/lib. To do this, you can do `make install
DESTDIR=/usr'. Under Linux, you can alternatively edit your
/etc/ld.so.conf to add /usr/local/lib and re-run ldconfig (after
installing filecmp.so.0.0 in /usr/local/lib).
Usage.
------
To use dirdiff, you invoke it from the command line with a list of
directories (between 2 and 5). For example, suppose I have 3 copies
of the Linux kernel source code, in directories called linux, bk, and
pmac. I can see the differences between these 3 trees with a command
like:
$ dirdiff linux bk pmac
This will display the file list window and start comparing the trees,
displaying files which differ as they are found. To see the
differences between two versions, click on the file name and then
select the versions to compare from the Diff menu. To copy from one
tree to another, click on the file name and select the copy operation
from the Copy menu.
In the differences window, there are checkboxes to the left of all the
sections which are different. You can use button 1 to select an
individual checkbox, or shift-button 1 or button 3 to select a whole
group. Selecting a line means that you are asking for that change to
be made when you update either of the files using the Merge menu. The
line will be removed if it is already present or added if it is not
present.
