Re: use an external diff on Binary files

[Ingolf Steinbach]

On Mon, Dec 10, 2001 at 12:15:36PM -0500, Matt Riechers wrote:
> > kambiz tavakoli wrote:
> > i entered an external diff program at the prereferences dialog box,
> > and tried it on binary files.
[...]
> You're diffing a non-mergable (binary) file. What kind of useful output were 
> you
> expecting? What file format are you diffing?

The fact that they are non-mergable does not imply that there
is no diff possible. I could for example imagine a diff like
the following:

byte at position 0x1234: left = 0x2a, right = 0x0d
bytes inserted at position 0x4321 in right: 0xf0 0x0b 0xa8

What I suspect is that the external diff program is not
capable of comparing binary files and dies/hangs in some
way. But this is not necessary a problem of non-mergability.
Using an external diff program which works for binary files
probably solves the problem.

Regards
    Ingolf
-- 

Ingolf Steinbach                       Jena-Optronik GmbH
Ingolf.Steinbach@jena-optronik.de       ++49 3641 200-147
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