File diffs

November 13, 2004 2:35 PM

I have two versions of a largeish text file, one a slightly modified version of the other. Is there any app I can run in Xp that would report the differences between the two on a line-to-line basis? Could it also do the same for a whole mess of corresponding text files within a large directory structure?
posted by signal to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

WinDiff?
posted by SPrintF at 2:45 PM on November 13, 2004

I do a lot of file diffing and I use exam dif pro for all my file and directory comparison needs. i think you can at least get a trial version from download.com. There are a ton of options there if you just search on Diff.
posted by Wolfie at 2:45 PM on November 13, 2004

Response by poster: Beautiful! (and very fast on the draw, people, let's keep it up).
Both links look like what I need. Thanks a ton.
posted by signal at 2:47 PM on November 13, 2004

BeyondCompare (30-day free trial) isn't bad.
posted by Turtle at 5:48 PM on November 13, 2004

I'd second Beyond Compare.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:19 AM on November 14, 2004

What's the point of diffing if you can't merge? WinMerge does both and is Free.
posted by costas at 2:37 PM on November 14, 2004

It's called FC.EXE and it's been included in MS-DOS forever. It does come with XP. It's a simple little file-compare util.

Other utils might be best for the directory-structure thing.
posted by neckro23 at 4:02 PM on November 14, 2004

Like costas, I use WinMerge for this kind of thing. It's very much like BeyondCompare, but much more free.
posted by smackfu at 5:38 PM on November 14, 2004