Any diff/merge tool that provides a report (metrics) of conflicts?

Answer 1

If you are going to merge a huge number of files, you want to minimize the differences reported to the barest minimum. Line-oriented diff tools report changes if the code is reformatted, or there's any change in a line.

The SD C# Smart Differencer reports differences based on source code syntax, not the physical layout of the text. It reports changes based on language elements (identifiers, expressions, statements, blocks, methods, ...) in terms of effect (insert, delete, copy, move, rename) from the point of view of the programmer. (The rename detection means it will ignore names changed consistently across a block/file).

Reporting this way tends to produce considerably smaller diffs than line-oriented diffs, thus using less of your attention.

Answer 2

Answer to my question after several days investigating:

1- Visual Studio 2008 & TFS 2008 cannot export any information.

2- After trying several tools: BeyondCompare 3 allows getting metrics from IU and easily export them. (Used File Compare Report/XML Dump filtering files instead of using Folder Compare Report.) KDiff3 allow getting some metrics using IU, but is not possible to export them.

Did not tried command line approach

NOTE: be aware that different tools have different conflict resolutions so metrics will be not 100% accurate. For example a file with 20 changes and 3 conflicts in TFS was reported as 20 changes 8 conflicts using beyond compare.