External diffence tools for Sourcesafe

Question

In podcast 40 one of the things mentioned was checking the difference between files in source control to see what was done the day before.

Are there any good external tools - something I can open all by itself - that will show the diff on everything changed since the last check-in or within a given time frame on a single project?

We're currently using SourceSafe but will hopefully be moving to TFS soon.

Thanks

Answer 1

The question is a little misleading. The term difference/compare tool is usually referred to a tool used to compare the contents of 2 versions of a file or compare the contents of a local file with that in source control repository.

If you want a tool that generates reports of all files modified between two dates or all files changed by a particular user etc., checkout VSSReporter.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, there aren't any external tools that can integrate within sourcesafe that I know of.

Depending on the question you asked, the best you can do is right click the folder you're interested in, go to differences, and click the recursive button, and uncheck the "same files" checkbox. The other option is to do the same thing, but search for the recursive history between dates.

If you want to see what you have done, you can search for all files you have checked out by doing View->Search->Status Search, Files checked out to <your username>, search in current project + subprojects.

This is really slow operation in sourcesafe, and is much faster in other version-control systems.

Answer 3

Once you move to TFS this is a bit easier since TFS tracks things in changesets, so your check-ins are all grouped. It's pretty easy to browse the list of changesets, and you can look at the details for any changeset to see exactly what files were changed. And from there, it's a simple right-click, compare, to previous version to see exactly what changed. I use this functionality all the time.

Also, similar to what FryGuy outlined in VSS, each changeset is linked to the user, so it's really easy to browse all changesets from a particular user, etc.

It's a huge improvement over trying to track things on this level in VSS.

Answer 4

Separate Diff tools are not available but you can find them in this suites

SourceAnyWhere(SAW) - http://www.dynamsoft.com

SourceOffSite (SOS) - http://www.sourcegear.com

VSS Remoting - http://www.sourceremoting.com

Those suites are for Remote access

Answer 5

you can configure other diff tool in the sourcesafe ,option->custom editor .