ProductsDiffDogZIP Archive Differencing

Altova DiffDog® 2012 includes enhanced support to diff/merge ZIP archives and the files contained in them.

Many diff/merge tools treat ZIP archives as binary files that are simply recognized as identical or different based on file size and modification date. DiffDog® 2012 empowers you to compare and display detailed differences in the contents of ZIP archive pairs. You can even merge differences in compressed files.

ZIP comparisons are selected from the DiffDog® 2012 Directory Compare window since, like directories, they are likely to contain multiple files.

ZIP files that appear in a Directory Compare window are identified with a unique icon.

Compare ZIP Archives

ZIP files are archives that can hold one or more files of any file type in a special compressed form designed to save storage space and minimize disk and network activity. DiffDog® 2012 displays lists of the files contained within ZIP archives in the familiar Directory Compare view.

Click image to enlarge screenshot

DiffDog® 2012 allows you to open file pairs stored inside a ZIP archive by clicking any file pair in the Directory Compare window. DiffDog even applies the correct comparison options based on file extensions, so you examine the files and merge differences with the same functionality available when comparing the uncompressed originals. In other words, you can:

• Compare and merge text or source code files stored in ZIP archive just like comparing uncompressed text files.
• Compare and edit XML files stored in ZIP format with advanced XML-aware functionality.
• Recognize individual binary files stored within pairs of ZIP archives as identical or different.

In the screenshot below the comment on line 2 of the file on the left is ignored because it is irrelevant to the XML equivalence of the two documents.

Click image to enlarge screenshot

Process New File Extensions

New file standards are often designed to take advantage of the Zip compression format to deliver entire sets of files in a single convenient package. The DiffDog® 2012 Options dialog lets you add the file extension to the DiffDog File types list and assign ZIP diff/merge processing.

Now you can apply the advanced capabilities of Altova DiffDog® 2012 to perform detailed comparisons of files in all ZIP archives regardless of the actual file extension. You can identify differences, and even merge changes with unprecedented accuracy, efficiency, and convenience.

Let DiffDog® 2012 track down differences in the ZIP archives associated with all your projects – download a free trial today!