[Info-vax] DCL Differences algorithm

[John Wallace]

On Nov 10, 5:55 pm, glen herrmannsfeldt <g... at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> DTL <didier.mora... at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Ok, forget it. I found about WinMergehttp://sourceforge.net/projects/winmerge/
> > which does what I would never ever be able to code :-)
>
> There is also the GNU implementation of diff for Win32 in unxutils,
> which I believe comes from sourceforge.  It shouldn't be hard
> to find, and includes other useful utilities.
>
> -- glen

WinMerge and diff (and indeed VMS DIFFERENCES) are very different
approaches to the same basic task. Many Windows-compatible people
looking for an interactive (not really scriptable) tool would be very
happy with WinMerge (me included) even when compared with some of the
commercial alternatives. WinMerge has had a tiny handful of quirks,
some of which I have seen first hand but none of which I can remember
right now (and anyway they may have been fixed). There are some things
which diff can do which WinMerge cannot, such as the kind of "adds/
deletes/changes" metrics which certain management-type folks think
might be important, and indeed diff can do scripted stuff in general
whereas WinMerge can't. VMS DIFFERENCES is (just) a handy comparison
tool.