Software → text comparison/replacer tool ??

text comparison/replacer tool ??
ne good free ones, does nebody know ??

tia
franx

•Text Comparison - Freeware - ExamDiff

if you want to pay for extra functionality from a text comparison tool i would highly recommend Exam Diff Pro or Beyond Compare.

•Search & Replace - Freeware - InfoRapid Search & Replace

a while back i gave all of these programs, along with several others, a test drive and I'm glad to see that both ExamDiff & InfoRapid are still on the Pricelessware List.

i notice that Agent Ransack is also mentioned. this might be worth considering if you're also doing extensive file\folder searches. it was recommended in this thread: Software To Find Files. i've downloaded it but haven't given it a test drive yet.

YAY thx a bunch ExamDiff was just the one i needed

said by franx42:

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YAY thx a bunch ExamDiff was just the one i needed

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great!

as long as you don't need to print out the results ExamDiff will serve you well!

Thanks for all this info, Trinity. I'm trying out Exam Diff Pro. Glad the question was asked! Sure looks like an interesting, useful program!

That ExamDiff looks good but it says that you need the pro version to highlight file differences down to the level of words or characters in changed lines and it does not do word wrap for long lines. These I think are needed features that make it kind of useless without them since sometimes a file won't work because it is missing a comma or a word has upper or lower case difference.

There is a file compare utility that comes with NSW2003 but it only works with Win9X OSes. I hope it comes with NSW2004 but that remains to be seen.

I would love to have a decent freeware file compare utility too so I hope someone adds one to this thread. I haven't found one yet.

Windiff (from MS) is built into source safe, and probably the visual studio tools - or check MS site.

said by Harrie:

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Thanks for all this info, Trinity. I'm trying out Exam Diff Pro. Glad the question was asked! Sure looks like an interesting, useful program!

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yw

give Beyond Compare a test-drive also. it's a great program and i prefer it to ExamDiff Pro for comparing directories.

said by Sentinel:

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That ExamDiff looks good but it says that you need the pro version to highlight file differences down to the level of words or characters in changed lines and it does not do word wrap for long lines. These I think are needed features that make it kind of useless without them since sometimes a file won't work because it is missing a comma or a word has upper or lower case difference.

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i think "useless" is a bit strong. it depends on the types of files you're working on. each line in a file is colour-coded according to whether there has been an addition\deletion\change. exam-diff served my purposes very well for a couple of years because i was comparing simple text files e.g reg files. i used both windiff & examdiff on windows98 but found that i used examdiff more. i'm sure if i'd been working on code windiff would have been much better for me. AFAIK windiff may well be the closest freeware tool that can do this for you. its often recommended to those who write code etc. give it a shot and see how it goes if you haven't done so already. here are a few links for you:

Windows XP Support Tools - Part 3
Overview: WinDiff

said by Sentinel:

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I would love to have a decent freeware file compare utility.I would love to have a decent freeware file compare utility too so I hope someone adds one to this thread. I haven't found one yet.

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do what i did... spend a few hours visiting several top software sites. after reading reviews, user comments and making a note of the star rating you can narrow it down to a few programs. download them and spend another few hours giving them a test drive on the types of files you will be comparing. take screenshot, make notes.... hell i even make a comparison chart for some software. whatever you do i'm sure you'll find something you're happy with.