Sometimes I've had a need to compare two text files against each other, for example
- to make sure that they were exactly identical
- or to spot a minor difference among lots of text
- or just to make sure that the differences made sense, like when comparing configuration files for test and production environments.
Back in the days when I was using TortoiseSvn, it was as easy as selecting the two files, right click and select "SVN Diff" from the menu, as described here. Nowadays I do something of the following alternatives.
Compare in Visual Studio Code
Suppose you want to compare two files, "First.txt" and "Second.txt".
- Open them in VS Code
- Make sure the explorer in VS Code is expanded
- In explorer, right click one of the files and select "Select for Compare"
- Then right click the other file and select "Compare with Selected"
- See the diff
Compare in Notepad++
To compare files in Notepad++ you need to install a plugin. This was easily done in the plugin manager before, but it is no longer there, so you have to download the plugin and copy it to the Notepad++ plugin folder.
- Download the compare plugin
I'm using the 32-bit Notepad++ so I downloaded the x86 version - Unzip to
C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\plugins - Start Notepad++, open the "Plugin" menu and look for "Compare"
- Open the files in Notepad++, select
Plugins => Compare => Compare - To close the comparison, select
Plugins => Compare => Clear Active Compare
