#1297 WinMerge needs to be aware of syntaxes

[Mark Craig]

For some years, I've been trying to use WinMerge to compare text files with JSON and YAML data structures in them. WinMerge has made this process much more difficult than it needs to be because it lacks any awareness of these structures. Awareness of the block-oriented nature of these files and other details of the syntax would make the process far more intelligent and dramatically less complex than it has been. I estimate that it would have saved me at least 50% of the hundreds of hours I have spent comparing and editing these file types.

I am unaware of any diff tools specialized for that purpose; I have tried several other diff tools in addition to WinMerge, and none were aware of syntax, not even the Compare plugin for Notepad++ (which can otherwise be made aware of syntax). If such a tool was available I would abandon WinMerge for this usage.

[Takashi Sawanaka]

It won't be implemented immediately unless someone provides a patch.

I haven't tried it, but there seems to be a syntax-aware diff/merge tool called SemanticMerge. Also, https://github.com/Wilfred/difftastic doesn't seem to support YAML yet, but it seems to be a syntax-aware diff tool.

[Mark Craig]

SemanticMerge's annual subscription cost is beyond what I can budget, but using your suggestions as breadcrumbs I found other possibilities such as comby. That and Difftastic and other things I've found so far have limitations - like being Linux-based - that make them unsuitable for my purpose, but I might find one that is.

[ranjit reddy]

This is a recurring issues with lot of software development programs, when i was working in a software development company in bangalore i had good mentorship when i was learning Laravel. they helped me lot . Having a good mentor is a great gift.