Altova DiffDog 2024 Enterprise Edition

Navigating and Merging Three-Way Differences

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With three-way comparisons, you can navigate differences between the three panes in a similar way as with two-way comparisons, from the Diff and Merge menu and toolbar. For example, you can run the Next difference (Alt+Down) ic_next-diff command to navigate to the next difference and Previous difference (Alt+Down) ic_previous-diff to navigate in the opposite direction, see also Navigating Differences.

 

Unlike two-way comparisons, three-way comparisons may result in conflicts and also require special merging commands (for example, to copy a difference from left to middle pane, or from middle to right). All the commands specific to three-way comparisons are available in the 3-Way Comparison toolbar. This toolbar appears automatically when a 3-way comparison is toggled on. You can also explicitly show or hide it from Tools | Customize | Toolbars tab.

dd_3way_toolbar

3-Way Comparison Toolbar

The 3-Way Comparison toolbar contains the following commands:

 

dd_ic_prev_conflict

Previous Conflict

Jump to the previous conflict.

dd_ic_next_conflict

Next Conflict

Jump to the next conflict.

dd_ic_L2M

Copy from left to middle

Copy (merge) the current difference from the left pane to the middle pane.

dd_ic_M2L

Copy from middle to left

Copy (merge) the current difference from the middle pane into the left pane.

dd_ic_M2R

Copy from middle to right

Copy (merge) the current difference from the middle pane to the right pane.

dd_ic_R2M

Copy from right to middle

Copy (merge) the current difference from the right pane to the middle pane.

dd_ic_3way_swap

Change document order (Swap panes)

Enables you to swap the left or right pane with the middle one, see Swapping Panes.

 

Note the following:

 

The commands above are enabled only if they are meaningful for the current difference or conflict. For example, the commands "Copy from left to middle" and "Copy from middle to left" are disabled if the current difference is between the middle and right panes (but not the left one).

 

Other commands that can be issued in the context of three-way merges are the same as for two-way merges, namely:

 

To undo a merge change, first click inside the pane where you want to undo the change, and then run the Edit | Undo menu command (or Ctrl+Z keyboard shortcut). The same applies for the Edit | Redo menu command (and its respective Ctrl+Y keyboard shortcut).

To save any merges made from DiffDog to a file, click the Save ic_save or Save As ic_save-as buttons at the top-right corner of each pane. To reload the file content from the disk (and thus lose any unsaved changes made from DiffDog), click Refresh ic_reload). See also Editing Files and Saving Files.

Differences resulting from three-way comparisons can be exported to an XML or text file, see Exporting Differences.

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