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  1. #1
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    Mac File Compare App

    I know that there's WinMerge for PC for file comparing. Does anyone use a good app on a Mac for this?

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Mac File Compare App

    JmcDog --

    I use BBEdit, from Bare Bones Software. You can download a free 30 day demo at:

    http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/index.shtml

    There's also a slightly less capable version, Text Wrangler, at:

    http://www.barebones.com/products/te...er/index.shtml

    that's completely free.

    Both will do file comparisons (2-file & multi-file), directory comparisons, file merges, multi-file search & replace, etc. They also both do syntax checking & coloring, can directly edit files on remote FTP servers & other very useful taasks.

    That said, there are a lot of MacHeads using TextMate these days. You can check it out at:

    http://macromates.com/

    There's a demo version, but no freebie.

    -- Larry

  3. #3
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    Default Re: Mac File Compare App

    I echo LEP and use BBEdit (IMHO you really shouldn't be without it on a Mac).

    Also, if you have the MacOSX developer tools, there's a file comparison utility in there. I found one other commercial product that seemed to work well. It was called zsCompare and is from a company called ZizaSoft.

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Mac File Compare App

    You could also install meld which is a linux/gtk application. All you need to do is install fink and then do a
    Code:
    fink install meld
    from within the terminal. Meld is a little slower than native apps because it uses X11 (which you need to install from your Mac CD) and doesn't blend that good with MacOSX but if you want a very powerful app for free it's what you end up using ;-) It features 3 way comparisons for files and directory structures with syntax highlighting. I've been using this in linux ever since and it is a very good tool.

    Kind regards,
    Tim

  5. #5
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    Default Re: Mac File Compare App

    If you do go the route Tim mentions, you'll have the added bonus of opening a whole lot of potential for new stuff, by getting X11 in place... OpenOffice for instance is a much better deal than that other Office suite ;)

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Mac File Compare App

    Thanks for the tips!

    Right now I'm using 10.2.8 and it seems like the current versions of apps suggested above require 10.3.

    I did find FileMerge on the OS X Developer Tools and this works great. One thing I noticed is that the zen core files all? have DOS line endings. So I was getting a lot of different files or it would say the whole file is different (not very helpful) until I changed the line endings to UNIX.

    Right now I'm trying to find a Terminal command to convert line endings for an entire directory and all subdirectories.

    I found this:
    /////////////////////
    To change the line endings from the command line, execute this command in the Terminal:

    tr \\r \\n < /path/to/script > /path/to/new_script

    Replace /path/to/script with the path to the script with Macintosh line endings, and /path/to/new_script to where you want to save the new file. The two paths cannot be the same, or you will end up creating an empty file.
    ////////////////////

    I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like it would only do one file at a time.

    Anyone have any ideas?

  7. #7
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    Default Re: Mac File Compare App

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcdog
    Thanks for the tips!

    Right now I'm using 10.2.8 and it seems like the current versions of apps suggested above require 10.3.
    Wow :) You really should update. 10.2 is very out of date. Even if you don't want to spend the money to get current (10.4.x), you can get copies of 10.3.x for next to nothing now. Many, many apps will require 10.3.x as minimum OS version.

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcdog
    I did find FileMerge on the OS X Developer Tools and this works great. One thing I noticed is that the zen core files all? have DOS line endings. So I was getting a lot of different files or it would say the whole file is different (not very helpful) until I changed the line endings to UNIX.
    That's another nice thing about BBEdit... it doesn't care what the line endings are.

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcdog
    Right now I'm trying to find a Terminal command to convert line endings for an entire directory and all subdirectories.

    I found this:
    /////////////////////
    To change the line endings from the command line, execute this command in the Terminal:

    tr \\r \\n < /path/to/script > /path/to/new_script

    Replace /path/to/script with the path to the script with Macintosh line endings, and /path/to/new_script to where you want to save the new file. The two paths cannot be the same, or you will end up creating an empty file.
    ////////////////////

    I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like it would only do one file at a time.

    Anyone have any ideas?
    That will definately only do one file at a time. A more important reason to not run that command though is that it might also change any instance of \r\r that is coded as a variable for an e-mail alert (I'm guessing) and you wouldn't want that. Do some poking around macosxhints.com or BBEdit's mailing list archives for better solutions.


    Good luck!

 

 

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