Filtering file differences

[Neil Faiman]

Is there any way to do a “Find Differences” that disregards certain predictable and uninteresting differences?

My specific example is a folder comparison of two folders that contain “the same” HTML files, but that are at different depths in the web site folder hierarchy. Thus, all intra-site links in the files will contain additional “../”s in the deeper folder. For example, in the shallower directory:

<link rel="Stylesheet" href="../zba-5.9.css" type="text/css">

<script src="../collapsible_menu.js"></script>

And in the deeper directory:

<link rel="Stylesheet" href="../../zba-5.9.css" type="text/css">

<script src="../../collapsible_menu.js"></script>

If I there were a Find Difference option, “disregard all occurrences of a specified grep pattern when comparing the files”, then I could just ignore all occurrences of “../” in href elements.

Thanks,

Neil Faiman

[Greg Raven]

Have you considered using absolute links from the top level of your site?

[Greg Raven]

So, for example, your links would look more like:

<link rel="Stylesheet" href="/zba-5.9.css" type="text/css">

<script src="/collapsible_menu.js"></script>

or

<link rel="Stylesheet" href="/css/zba-5.9.css" type="text/css">

<script src="/js/collapsible_menu.js"></script>

On Friday, January 30, 2026 at 11:24:46 AM UTC-8 Neil Faiman wrote:

[GP]

While it isn't a BBEdit solution, Beyond Compare has the capabilities you're looking for. You can define unimportant text, by string with or without matching case or by regular expression, and then specify how an unimportant text definition is applied to a comparison operation.

The Scooter Software YouTube channel has a Beyond Compare 4: Define Unimportant Text video that demonstrates using that capability to ignore timestamps in file comparisons. Something similar to that would be defining a regular expression to ignore differences in URL paths in comparing files.

Beyond Compare is a relatively small cost application, but there is a trial version available so you can try before buying.

Since this is a BBEdit forum, if you want this sort of ignore differences support in BBEdit's file/folder comparison capabilities, you can send in a feature request to BBEdit Support. 

On Friday, January 30, 2026 at 11:24:46 AM UTC-8 Neil Faiman wrote: