ECMerge 2.4 is there, with binary comparison!

It has been quite a long time since last post, but here it is, ECMerge with binary comparison.

Let’s start with what can be expected from the binary engine:

• compares files up to the dozen of Giga bytes without too much efforts (few megabytes matched per seconds on a recent computer with a processor at 2Ghz)
• comparison is done in a background thread so that user interface does not hang
• synchronizing and non-synchronizing comparison is possible. Non-synchronizing compares bytes at same offsets, synchronizing tries to find a minimal difference, in order to treat files of any size, the synchronizing version of the algorithm uses heuristics (pure LCS is definitely too hard for Gigabytes of data).
• 2 and 3 way comparison is supported, though there is no editing and no merge capabilities
• long portions of text within or between zones of interest can be collapsed (i.e. you can collapste long regions with only equal bytes, only inserted or a mix).
• missing bytes in one side are compensated by corresponding “holes” (represented as a hatched region) in the other sides
• binary file types are supported. You can define fields at predefined or dynamic ranges of bytes to ignore (timestamps, random filling…). We defined a MS Executable file format which defines a set of Timestamp fields (there are several places in the file format where timestamps are saved) so that you can compare executables produced at two different dates and know if they really differ.
• as usual, all of that is scriptable, you can dig into comparison results, parameter new comparison, add fields

Here are a few screenshots:

In addition to binary, we added more than twenty predefined languages file formats which allow you to ignore easily lines commented out (such as C, Bash, Java, PO files…). We updated the SCC plugin for Subversion and CVS.

We improved the UI in many aspects (two sizes for icons, application icon of much better quality for large sizes, validation of fields where possible on Windows, find/replace is better).

Finally we rationalized the executable file name to have the same name on Windows and on Unixes: ecmerge (with .exe extension on Windows)

Try ECMerge with its new binary comparison.

Have a good week,
Armel