Re: [Kdiff3-user] OT: best text-based diff tool

[Joachim E. <joa...@gm...>]

Hi David,

> i figured you'd be a good person to ask this question of:

Hmm. I'm quite biased towards KDiff3 ;-)

> what is the "best" (your opinion) text-based diff tool?

"Best" for which purpose?

> the diff tool can be console-based.  it could also be vim or
> emacs based, etc.

There are so many diff-tools that I cannot know them all. 

The focus of KDiff3 is diff and merge, especially 3-way merge;
viewing differences in code (especially C++);
platform independence and more and more towards internationalisation, which is 
a very huge topic; directory comparison.

Several tools are optimised for diff only or 2-way-merge (without a base). 
They are often easier to understand. Some programs allow direct editing in 
the diff-windows.

The console based GNU-diff is very useful for creating patches and processing 
huge files. But it is probably not so suitable for unicode files.

Other tools I've tried sometime are: meld, kompare, tkdiff, mgdiff, xxdiff, 
winmerge, dirdiff

If you want to compare only two files, then you have much choice.
If you want to merge a lot, then you want 3-way merges, but  you won't even 
find many commercial programs that can do that.

Since you probably want more opinions, perhaps other people on this mailing 
list can offer their preferences. 

Or just google for two programs at once like "winmerge kdiff3" and see many 
interesting discussions.

Lot's of fun!
Joachim