From: Jacob Fugal <lukfugl@...>
Date: 2005-08-05T00:08:31+09:00
Subject: Re: Comparing directory contents

On 8/3/05, Lothar Scholz <mailinglists@scriptolutions.com> wrote:
> JF> Though Brian Schr�der gave an interesting irb implementation, what you
> JF> really need is diff[1]. And don't despair, there is diff for
> JF> Windows[2] (via the command line).
> 
> JF> The GNU developers have put a *lot*
> JF> of work and refinement into this heavily used tool -- don't reinvent
> JF> the wheel.
> 
> <flame>
> And they still got nothing what even comes close to "AraxisMerge" on
> Windows, neither from the GUI nor from the quality of the diff algorithm.
> </flame>

Ok, to qualify my statement: Don't reinvent this particular wheel for
a once-off solution. I won't say that someone else can make a better
wheel when that's their primary goal. I don't think Dave Davidson's
goal is to develop a new diff utility. Regarding AraxisMerge, I've
never heard of it. It may be better than GNU DiffUtils. I can't make
any judgement there.

> But back to the question from the original poster, i think diff is a
> complete wrong idea as he said he only needs the file names and the content
> does not matter for an installer as he puts the complete file into the
> setup.exe.

diff -qr | grep '^Only'

Know the tool before dismissing it.

Jacob Fugal