Re: [ JDiff-devel ] Good work!

[<md...@st...>]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2000 Ste...@lr... wrote:
> I had occasion to test out your initial jDiff release to compare a
> couple of Windows registry exports today. Very slick! It made the job
> much easier.

thanks. i've actually made it somewhat better in the last few days, but i
broke the CVS on Saturday and it wasn't fixed until this morning. i should
check more code in tonight, and i'll let everyone know when i do.

> An enhancement request: How about integrating your jEdit gutter code
> to supply line numbers?

it is a planned feature, but i didn't want to put the cart before the
horse. there will likely be a gutter in JDiff almost exactly like jEdit
(except that it will accommodate gaps in the line numbering).

> Some thoughts re: console mode. Sounds like a good idea. Options like
> "--console" and "--gui" (or perhaps "--nogui" and "--gui") to indicate
> the desired mode seem reasonable. Having jDiff "remember" the last
> mode would certainly be helpful. The only thing I would suggest NOT
> doing would be to have GUI as the default mode and require the
> "--console" option for command line use, as this would require more
> typing when using console mode (which seems backwards to me).

i like your idea about "nogui" and "gui". as for "remembering", i'm not
sure that i like that idea as much as a properties file. i think that
since the command used to invoke JDiff will typically be a shortcut of
some kind anyways (not the full 'java -classpath ... jdiff.JDiff --nogui
-i file1 file2'), another good way to do the --gui/--nogui transparently
would be to provide two different scripts, one that calls JDiff with the
--gui option and another that calls it with --nogui.

> Also, thanks for mentioning the Java getopt package. I wasn't aware of
> this before. I think it could come in handy for a command-line file
> purge utility I wrote a while back.

yeah, i was quite pleased to find it myself. it definitely makes things
easier, since i can get a really good, standard command line parser for
slightly less effort than it would take me to hack a less featureful
ad-hoc parser. the part i like best is that it acts like every other
getopt program, so people don't have to scratch their head as much
(provided that --help says something moderately useful).

-md