Comparing any two files

This is a feature of JBuilder Enterprise

JBuilder's Compare Files dialog box allows you to compare any two files. They can be displayed either side by side or as if they were merged. If you look at them as if they were merged, the diffs are highlighted, with the first file you chose showing as the older version and the second file showing as the newer version.

The side-by-side view, called the Source View, supports these basic text editing functions: text entry, cut, paste, and delete. This lets you make changes to both buffers. (Note that undo/redo functions are not supported.)

The merged view, called the Diff View, supports individual diff block reversion. This means that, where the old and the new file have two different blocks of text in the same physical part of the file, JBuilder can make them the same by replacing the newer file's block of text with the corresponding block of text in the old file.

To compare any two files,

  1. Choose File|Compare Files. The Select Old File navigation dialog box appears:

    Select Old File navigation dialog

  2. Select the first file and click OK. The Select New File dialog box appears.
  3. Select the second file and click OK. The Compare Files dialog box appears:

    The Compare Files dialog box

Click the ellipsis buttons by the file paths at the top of the dialog box to choose different files to compare.

Check the Sychronize Scrolling checkbox to synchronize the scrolling between the two source panes in the Source View.

The source panes tile side by side by default. To see them one above the other, choose Tile Horizontally.

Each pane has a status bar at the bottom. The numeric row:column notation at the bottom right of the status bar indicates your current cursor position within the source pane.

For a glossary of version handling terms, please see the Version handling glossary in "Comparing files and versions" in Building Applications with JBuilder.