How to diff custom file list with WinMerge

Question

Hello, I have a code directory structure, which is this:

  modudle1
    trunk
      pom.xml
    branches
      1.1
        pom.xml
  modudle2
    trunk
      pom.xml
      submodule-2.1
        pom.xml
      submodule-2.2
        pom.xml
    branches
      1.1
        pom.xml
        submodule-2.1
          pom.xml
        submodule-2.2
          pom.xml

I need to compare pom.xml files in trunk folders with the ones in branches/1.1:

  modudle1\trunk\pom.xml 
  modudle1\branches\1.1\pom.xml 

  modudle2\trunk\pom.xml
  modudle2\branches\1.1\pom.xml

  modudle2\trunk\submodule-2.1\pom.xml
  modudle2\branches\1.1\submodule-2.1\pom.xml

  modudle2\trunk\submodule-2.2\pom.xml
  modudle2\branches\1.1\submodule-2.2\pom.xml

What solutions are available to do this? Is there a solution to use with WinMerge, where I could present a filelist to compare? Other suggestions and tools are welcome, too.

Answer 1

I believe the simplest way would be to script it, in order to pass to WinMerge:

• one fixed file
• one file found by the script (which is essentially a 'find . -name "pom.xml"' in the right paths.

In short, I don't know about a diff tool taking one file, and a list of files to compare that one file to.

Answer 2

Total Commander has the Synchronize Dirs command (In the Commands Menu) that allows you to compare 2 folders recursivelly and to see what are the differencese (what files are in one directory and not in the other, what files have changed).

Unfortunatelly you cannot generate a "global diff" file with the result of this comparison (or if you can, I am yet to find how).

Give it a try and tell me if this was what you were looking for.