How to configure file comparison?

[adolforst]

Hi,

I want to compare 2 versions of a file. LogicalDoc is capable of comparing the metadata of different versions of a file but I want to be able to compare the actual document contents rather than the metadata. Is that possible?

Thanks for your help

[car031]

Actually this is not possible, but thanks for letting us know about this.

[adolforst]

Hi,

Thanks for your quick reply. I have another question regarding file comparison. it seems that one can only compare the metadata of 2 files at a time, is it possible to extend the number of files compared at a time?

Thanks.

[car031]

Up to now there is no such option

[imsajid]

Extending Xerxes' solution, you can use more sophisticated tools than diff for displaying the differences.

wdiff

wdiff can be "too smart" at times, but I find it often useful for taking a quick glance at differences between configuration files. This script can be used for output with colors:

#!/bin/bash

RED=$'\e'"[1;31m"
GREEN=$'\e'"[1;32m"
RESET=$'\e'"[0m"
WDIFF_ARGS="-w$RED -x$RESET -y$GREEN -z$RESET --avoid-wraps"

wdiff $WDIFF_ARGS \
<(grep -vE '^([ \t]*#|^[ \t]*$)' $1) \
<(grep -vE '^([ \t]*#|^[ \t]*$)' $2) \
| less -R
On Ubuntu and other Debian-based systems, just apt-get install wdiff before using this script.

Meld

Meld is a nice GUI alternative, but its "Text filtering" feature has some issues. Instead of using text filtering, I remove comments altogether before showing the results in Meld. The drawback is losing the ability to edit the files while comparing them. Here's a simple script for using Meld:

#!/bin/bash

meld <(grep -vE '^([ \t]*#|^[ \t]*$)' $1) \
<(grep -vE '^([ \t]*#|^[ \t]*$)' $2)

[imsajid]

Hi,

Thanks for your quick reply. I have another question regarding file comparison. it seems that one can only compare the metadata of 2 files at a time, is it possible to extend the number of files compared at a time?

Thanks.

you can compare only 2 files in same time