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Graphical diff/patch viewer

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Rob Gom

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Nov 3, 2010, 4:10:01 AM11/3/10
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Hi all,
do you know/is there any graphical patch/diff viewer in Debian (or for
Linux in general)? Such a tool would produce side by side view of
changes/deletions/inserts.
There is kompare for KDE, but it is unreliable - produces false
results for specific patches (bug not reported yet, as I have to
reproduce it with something I can make
public). To be honest, I have looked at meld, beyond compare, diffuse,
xxdiff, tkdiff and found nothing appropriate.
Do you know anything else? Have I missed anything?

Regards,
Robert


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Volkan YAZICI

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Nov 3, 2010, 4:30:02 AM11/3/10
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On Wed, 3 Nov 2010, Rob Gom <rgom....@gmail.com> writes:
> do you know/is there any graphical patch/diff viewer in Debian (or for
> Linux in general)? Such a tool would produce side by side view of
> changes/deletions/inserts.
> There is kompare for KDE, but it is unreliable - produces false
> results for specific patches (bug not reported yet, as I have to
> reproduce it with something I can make
> public). To be honest, I have looked at meld, beyond compare, diffuse,
> xxdiff, tkdiff and found nothing appropriate.

Not appropriate in what sense?

> Do you know anything else? Have I missed anything?

There is diff modes in emacs, eclipse, netbeans, etc. Did you try them
as well?


Regards.


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Rob Gom

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Nov 3, 2010, 5:10:02 AM11/3/10
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On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 9:20 AM, Volkan YAZICI <yazi...@ttmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Nov 2010, Rob Gom <rgom....@gmail.com> writes:
>> do you know/is there any graphical patch/diff viewer in Debian (or for
>> Linux in general)? Such a tool would produce side by side view of
>> changes/deletions/inserts.
>> There is kompare for KDE, but it is unreliable - produces false
>> results for specific patches (bug not reported yet, as I have to
>> reproduce it with something I can make
>> public). To be honest, I have looked at meld, beyond compare, diffuse,
>> xxdiff, tkdiff and found nothing appropriate.
>
> Not appropriate in what sense?
>

I want to preview a patch, not compare directory/file contents. The
tools above can't load a patch and display it, unless
I missed something obvious.

I'm afraid that Eclipse would be too big for such purpose, but taking
into consideration its feature richness and flexibility,
I would give it a chance.

Thanks for the answer,
Robert


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Javier Barroso

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Nov 3, 2010, 6:10:02 AM11/3/10
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Hi,

On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 10:00 AM, Rob Gom <rgom....@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 9:20 AM, Volkan YAZICI <yazi...@ttmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 3 Nov 2010, Rob Gom <rgom....@gmail.com> writes:
>>> do you know/is there any graphical patch/diff viewer in Debian (or for
>>> Linux in general)? Such a tool would produce side by side view of
>>> changes/deletions/inserts.
>>> There is kompare for KDE, but it is unreliable - produces false
>>> results for specific patches (bug not reported yet, as I have to
>>> reproduce it with something I can make
>>> public). To be honest, I have looked at meld, beyond compare, diffuse,
>>> xxdiff, tkdiff and found nothing appropriate.
Apply the patch in a tmp directory and then use meld, vimdiff, or what you like

I don't see the point of viewing a patch side-by-side, understanding
the format should be enough

Regards,


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Gregory Seidman

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Nov 3, 2010, 8:00:02 AM11/3/10
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On Wed, Nov 03, 2010 at 09:08:13AM +0100, Rob Gom wrote:
> Hi all,
> do you know/is there any graphical patch/diff viewer in Debian (or for
> Linux in general)? Such a tool would produce side by side view of
> changes/deletions/inserts.
> There is kompare for KDE, but it is unreliable - produces false
> results for specific patches (bug not reported yet, as I have to
> reproduce it with something I can make
> public). To be honest, I have looked at meld, beyond compare, diffuse,
> xxdiff, tkdiff and found nothing appropriate.
> Do you know anything else? Have I missed anything?

You have to be comfortable in vim, but you can use the following:

gvim "+vert diffpatch <patchfile>" <originalfile>

If you aren't comfortable with vim, you *might* be able to use the
following, but no guarantees (I don't have a patch file handy to determine
whether this will work):

gvim -y "+vert diffpatch <patchfile>" <originalfile>

> Regards,
> Robert
--Greg


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Jochen Schulz

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Nov 3, 2010, 9:10:01 AM11/3/10
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Rob Gom:

>
> do you know/is there any graphical patch/diff viewer in Debian (or for
> Linux in general)? Such a tool would produce side by side view of
> changes/deletions/inserts.

Apart from vimdiff: have you tried Kdiff3?

J.
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[Agree] [Disagree]
<http://www.slowlydownward.com/NODATA/data_enter2.html>

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Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.

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Nov 3, 2010, 2:30:01 PM11/3/10
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In <AANLkTiky2SVHgRAZZ1W1R...@mail.gmail.com>, Rob Gom
wrote:

>There is kompare for KDE, but it is unreliable - produces false
>results for specific patches.

Odd. I use it all the time and haven't seen it be inconsistent. It fails
indicate files have changed when git uses "Binary files a and b differ." as
the patch text, but it shows all the other changes. There are some Kompare
options that you may want to set/clear though.

I'd be very interested in seeing a case where kompare displays a valid patch
incorrectly.
--
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b...@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_))
ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-'
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Rob Gom

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Nov 4, 2010, 5:30:02 AM11/4/10
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On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
<b...@iguanasuicide.net> wrote:
> In <AANLkTiky2SVHgRAZZ1W1R...@mail.gmail.com>, Rob Gom
> wrote:
>>There is kompare for KDE, but it is unreliable - produces false
>>results for specific patches.
>
> Odd.  I use it all the time and haven't seen it be inconsistent.  It fails
> indicate files have changed when git uses "Binary files a and b differ." as
> the patch text, but it shows all the other changes.  There are some Kompare
> options that you may want to set/clear though.
>
> I'd be very interested in seeing a case where kompare displays a valid patch
> incorrectly.

Thanks for the answer.
1. There's an open bug against kompare about saying "this patch is
incorrect" for perfectly fine patches (kde bugs).
2. My bug occurs for patches with several directories/files modified.
Some example. For patch containing modifications for the following
files:
a/b/c/d.txt
a/b/c/e.txt
a/b/c/f.txt
a/g/h/i.txt
a/g/h/j.txt
a/g/h/k.txt

Kompare would create the following directory graph:
a
g
c
d.txt
e.txt
f.txt
h
i.txt
j.txt
k.txt

instead of expected
a
b
c
d.txt
e.txt
f.txt
g
h
i.txt
j.txt
k.txt

Some parts of directory tree are put in invalid places.

I will try to report a bug, but for that I must recreate working
example, which may take a while.

Regards,
Robert


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Rob Gom

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Nov 4, 2010, 5:30:02 AM11/4/10
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On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 2:00 PM, Jochen Schulz <m...@well-adjusted.de> wrote:
> Rob Gom:
>>
>> do you know/is there any graphical patch/diff viewer in Debian (or for
>> Linux in general)? Such a tool would produce side by side view of
>> changes/deletions/inserts.
>
> Apart from vimdiff: have you tried Kdiff3?
>
[cut]
Can't preview a diff with kdiff3. Is there an option to do that?

Regards,
Robert


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Rob Gom

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Nov 4, 2010, 5:30:03 AM11/4/10
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On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Javier Barroso <javib...@gmail.com> wrote:
[cut]

> Apply the patch in a tmp directory and then use meld, vimdiff, or what you like
>

Why should I do such operation? Only to satisfy some tools? I don't
need/want to apply huge patches to huge source trees. I want to
preview them separately. It is possible with kompare, so is possible
in general.

> I don't see the point of viewing a patch side-by-side, understanding
> the format should be enough
>

It's a matter of personal preferences. I prefer viewing patches that
way, I find it more convenient.

Regards,
Robert


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Rob Gom

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Nov 4, 2010, 5:40:02 AM11/4/10
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[cut]

>
> You have to be comfortable in vim, but you can use the following:
>
> gvim "+vert diffpatch <patchfile>" <originalfile>
>
> If you aren't comfortable with vim, you *might* be able to use the
> following, but no guarantees (I don't have a patch file handy to determine
> whether this will work):
>
> gvim -y "+vert diffpatch <patchfile>" <originalfile>
>
>> Regards,
>> Robert
> --Greg
>
Those are big patches, consisting of several files/directories. Would
gvim handle that? But still I need an original file, which I perceive
as downside.

Regards,
Robert


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Gregory Seidman

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Nov 4, 2010, 8:50:02 AM11/4/10
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On Thu, Nov 04, 2010 at 10:30:13AM +0100, Rob Gom wrote:
> [cut]
> >
> > You have to be comfortable in vim, but you can use the following:
> >
> > gvim "+vert diffpatch <patchfile>" <originalfile>
> >
> > If you aren't comfortable with vim, you *might* be able to use the
> > following, but no guarantees (I don't have a patch file handy to determine
> > whether this will work):
> >
> > gvim -y "+vert diffpatch <patchfile>" <originalfile>
> >
> >> Regards,
> >> Robert
> > --Greg
> >
> Those are big patches, consisting of several files/directories. Would
> gvim handle that? But still I need an original file, which I perceive
> as downside.

I can't say I've tried it with multi-file patches, but vim tends to be
pretty robust.

Also, of course you need an original file. If you don't have an original
file there is nothing to look at other than the patch file itself. What
is there to visualize without an original?

> Regards,
> Robert
--Greg


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Rob Gom

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Nov 4, 2010, 9:20:02 AM11/4/10
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On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 1:37 PM, Gregory Seidman
<gsslist...@anthropohedron.net> wrote:
[cut]

>
> Also, of course you need an original file. If you don't have an original
> file there is nothing to look at other than the patch file itself. What
> is there to visualize without an original?
>
>> Regards,
>> Robert
> --Greg
>
The same story as when looking at patch/diff itself.
Sometimes you want to focus on differences, context is given by diff (-u).
That's enough for me to review a patch in most cases.

Regards,
Robert


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Rob Gom

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Nov 8, 2010, 6:20:01 AM11/8/10
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[cut]

>
> I'd be very interested in seeing a case where kompare displays a valid patch
> incorrectly.
> --
> Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.                   ,= ,-_-. =.

FYI,
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=256355

Regards,
Robert


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