February 15, 2012

Techbits #2: KDiff3 - Visual & Recursive Diff Utility

Visual utility whether it be IDE for managing your codebase or something else is always desired. In the same context, a visual representation is also quite helpful when you want to compare files or directories, and this is exactly where the utility KDiff3 comes into picture.

KDiff3 provides a wide range of features like:

  • File Comparison / Diff - Two-way (two files) and Three-way (three files)
  • File Merge
  • Integration with Windows Explorer - invoke the diff directly with a right-click
  • Integration with source code control software like Rational ClearCase and Subversion
  • Directory Diff / Folder Diff - Traversing folders recursively and performing folder & file comparison

The last of the aforementioned features, Directory / Folder Diff, is quite handy. It means you'll be able to select two directories and do a diff between them recursively - it'll tell you in what way are the directories differing i.e. which files are present, not present, present & same, present & different. It will also then let you transition and inspect the differences between a specific file in the two directories.

Note that the usage of the tool will not only increase your productivity but also reduce any mistakes or overlooks if you do the comparison manually. Apart from KDiff3, there are other mechanisms as well like the in-built diff functionality of Eclipse (if you use Eclipse as your IDE - but this option falls out if all you are interested in just file diff rather than code diff) and tools like WinMerge. Personally, though, I found KDiff3 very handy of all of them.

KDiff3 is officially hosted at http://kdiff3.sourceforge.net/.

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