Araxis - Best tool for file diff and merging

Once you are dealing with a plethora of files on your disk, with each file replicated across various snapshots of the data; sooner or later you need to be able to take diffs and merge various version of the files. This just not only applies to files in source code if you are a programmer but is also applicable for different text files in general.

Sometimes a small problem in a file (which can be easily identified by taking the right diff) can prevent you from making progress on a problem. The scale of the problem exponentially increases if the database and hence the files are huge in number. In such scenarios, it becomes extremely important to be able to do the following

Understand the difference across those various versions of a file present in different snapshots.
Ensure that you are working on the right content of a given file.
Be able to combine content of the compared files if required

This is where one requires a reliable and easy to use tool for taking those important diffs and doing the right merging. The tool should be able to highlight the differences/changes in files at a glance and should provide intuitive click based interface to do quick file merge. Araxis is one such useful tool. For the complete feature list of the same, you can of course visit their website. However a few of them that I find really useful are mentioned below

Instant Diff – Forget about having two files, just copy paste some content in the two comparison windows and it will show you instant diff
Instant comparison update – You can change content of either file during merge and it will automatically update the graphical diff information for you so that you can readily analyze it
Ease of Filters – You can add filters for file extensions as well as folders. For example of you are taking diff of two folders in a CVS repository, you don’t want the unrequired diff of the CVS/ folder to be shown.
Ease of browsing across diffs – It provides a nice GUI to select next/previous diffs and shows a summary of diff at the bottom of the pane. Very useful when you are in a hurry.
Hierarchical folder comparison – Its very easy to compare entire directory tree with click of a button. This is extremely useful when dealing with multiple snapshots of the same database.

I will highly recommend this tool to everyone. Go, give it a try. Happy ARAXISing!!

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