3-way Folder Compare?

[Chris]

Zlev,

I sent you the list by email. If you have further questions, you're also welcome to contact us at [email protected].

[beelsr]

<chiming in>
Oh, yeah. Love the text merge but folder merge is sorely missed. The ability to do "regular" compares without merge would be lovely. it would save me a couple hours a week...
</chiming in>

I strongly encourage anyone else who feels the same to chime in. We need to know whether there is sufficient demand for 3-way compare in addition to 3-way merge before we consider adding it.

[davenovak]

Any update on the progress of supporting 3-way folder compares for BC3?

This has been high on my wish list for years now and, in my mind, is the only notably feature lacking in BC3 today. Any my need for this has increased as of late given that our development approach now entails working off a branched copy of a graphics engine and routinely merging our changes with new releases of said engine. Such a feature would not only save me hours of tedious work during each merge update, but would likely keep me from making careless mistakes.

Please tell me that you plan on releasing this soon!

[davenovak]

And before I gloss over the rest of the topic at hand, let me say that I too would definitely like to see a 3-way compare in addition to the existing 3-way merge (available for text files). In fact, I think that 3-way compare would work very nicely with 3-way folder compare. From the 3-way folder compare, one should easily be able to drill down to a 3-way file compare.

I strongly encourage anyone else who feels the same to chime in. We need to know whether there is sufficient demand for 3-way compare in addition to 3-way merge before we consider adding it.

[Chris]

Our developers are actively working on 3-way folder merge but we haven't set a release date for it yet.

Right now we're just collecting feedback on 3 way comparison but we haven't made the decision to add it as a feature yet.

[davenovak]

Just to be sure that I understand, what exactly do you mean by 3-way folder merge? How would this be different from 3-way folder compare? I've re-read this entire thread and somehow missed the distinction. Is it fair to say that 3-way folder merge is a superset of 3-way folder compare?

Our developers are actively working on 3-way folder merge but we haven't set a release date for it yet.

Right now we're just collecting feedback on 3 way comparison but we haven't made the decision to add it as a feature yet.

[Michael Bulgrien]

Just to be sure that I understand, what exactly do you mean by 3-way folder merge?

A 3-way merge detects changes that have occurred in two sets of objects branched from some common ancestor, and merges them together to create a third set of objects that contain both sets of changes (alternately, the set of changes from one side is merged into the other side so that the other side contains all of the changes.)

BC3 currently supports a 3-way file merge. BC3 does not currently support a 3-way file compare. The difference is that a 3-way file merge analyzes the input files to create an output file with the combined differences. There is no output file in a 3-way file compare. A 3-way file compare would allow the user to freely edit all three files and copy data back and forth between all three of them.

A three-way folder merge would be similar in that it would identify changes in two sets of files and folders branched from a common ancestor, attempt to apply the combined set of changes from both sets of files into a new set of files in the output location (whether that location be a new folder, or one side of the folder compare into which changes from the other side will be merged in.)

A three-way folder merge would be useful in a version control scenario where the code base for a product is branched, and a separate set of enhancements (or defect fixes) are developed in each branch of the source code. At some future date, the changes implemented in both branches of the source code may need to be merged back into one common set of source files.

A three-way folder compare would be useful when you simply want to see how files differ between computers 1 and 2 to get an idea of how to modify the files for computer 3. By nature, the three folders may need to remain unique with changes made to each folder that are specific to the system they are being applied to. In such a scenario, a three-way merge is useless (or would be cumbersome at best). The user needs the ability to freely edit all parts of the compare without analyzing differences and trying to merge them.

[davenovak]

OK -- I'm crystal now. Thanks for making that clarification.

With that all said, I actually have a need for both approaches: 3-way folder merge and 3-way folder compare. However, my more immediate need is for 3-way folder merge, which I'm happy to hear is actively in progress.

I eagerly await this upcoming release!

[davenovak]

I wanted to take this opportunity to provide an example as to how we would use 3-Way Folder Merge.

In my “real life” scenario, we’ve purchased a graphics engine for which we receive regular maintenance updates. However, because of the way the engine is structured, it has become necessary for us to make changes to the low-level engine itself (as opposed to sub-classing and overriding the base implementation). For example, we started with version 3.0 of the engine and so what we have now could be described as version 3.0 Delta.

With that in mind, the attachment illustrates what a typical merge might look like when we receive an update (call it 3.1) from the game engine manufacturer. As you can see from the picture, we would actually need a 4th output location to put the merge of 3.1 and 3.0 Delta, both of which share a common ancestor: 3.0.

I hope this makes sense. It should serve as a good "use case" for the work you are doing.

Thanks!

[DorothyFan1]

BC3 does not currently support a 3-way file compare.

It doesn't?! When are we getting this? The next major release?

[Ram09]

We also would really like a 3 way folder compare. We are in the same scenario of having 3 environments (dev,test,prod) and simply want to compare all three folders and see the differences and from that copy sections of code accordingly in the files.

So make this another customer request for the 3 way folder compare.

[NathanL]

3-way folder compare

I also have a need for a 3 way folder compare function. I routinely deal with 3 seperate storage tiers, each that follow a similar folder structure (similar to a Dev, Test, and Production setup).

A 3 way compare would greatly help reconcile data that exsists in 1 location that it shouldnt vs the other tiers. Beyond compare is already an authorized tool for our environment so I would really love to avoid having to find a different provider.

[Aaron]

Thanks for the feedback. Please submit as specific a test as you can and we'll keep track of that info in this thread.

When you want to compare 3 ways (Dev, Text, Production) how do you envision the comparison looking?

[NathanL]

3 way folder compare

We have 3 seperate processing folders, for the sake of this discussion I'll call them Dev, Test, and Production. Due to the nature of our storage SAN (muliple petabytes) we have files split across 3 seperate physical disk systems. we process and test in Dev, store our test files in another teir (test), and publish our live files into Production. We match the folder structure across all three storage tiers for simplified navigation.

Right now when I compare files between Dev and Test, and then Test and Production, I have to do 2 seperate sweeps, if I had a "3 way" folder compare, basically 3 compare windows, 1 for each tier, this would allow me to compare contents, and then move contents as appropriate between tiers.

I could imagine trying to develop a "Move Left" or "Move Right" control structure could be a challenge. What if it was setup with Three columns, the far Left column could move "right" to Center, The Center Column could move Right or Left, and the far Right column could move Left, then you could just re-arrange which column was "center" through a "swap sides" type button(s)

The file types I typically deal with are going to be video and image media (imagine a post production house) so I'm compareing file sizes, date created, file name, etc.

Thanks.

[davenovak]

Status Update???

Where are you guys at now with any type of 3-way folder compare/merge? I really need this feature to ease my frequent folder merge burdens.