Project Compare

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1

Hello,

I am able to compare 2 projects and given results. My question:

Is there a way to export the results? Is there another compare tool I may not know about? Thank you,

2

Additional, I am using Automation Studio 4.3. Thanks,

3

Hello Nick,

There is no built-in tool that I’m aware of to compare separate Automation Studio projects. Since AS projects are largely made of user readable files (XML, code in various languages), you could use a generic folder/files comparison tool to compare the root directory (w/ subfolders) of the project.

I personally use Winmerge for folder/files comparison. I’d recommend focusing mainly on the Logical and Physical folders for changes relevant in Automation Studio. Note that not all files will be human readable (ex. compiled libraries), but you should be able to parse differences in code and/or configuration.

-Austin

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4

Hello Austin,

Thank you for your assistance, I will give this a go.

5

Austin’s Winmerge suggestion is a good one. Another tool that might be helpful is git (i.e., GitHub Desktop or Sourcetree). If I have two projects that I know to be similar, I sometimes follow this process:

  1. Create a copy of one version of the project in a separate folder
  2. Create a local git repository in that new folder (doesn’t need to be tied to a remote repository)
  3. Commit the first copy of the project as an initial commit
  4. Completely clear the files for the first project out and copy in the files from the second project
  5. Check the differences that git highlights between the second version of the project and your last commit

I’ve found that this highlights the differences quickly (assuming there aren’t a ton of them), and it allows you to keep a record of both projects in the version history should you keep working within the repository you created. You can also pick and choose which differences you want to keep or discard going forward.

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6

with git yes we have options for saving comparison to a file too:

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7

I can highly recommend Beyond Compare for comparing projects (and also folders or files).

There are also a lot of filter options to ignore file types or folders, show only files and folders with differences, show only differences with or without context inside a file, edit context inside,…

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