Options for Comparing and Merging Directories

+ The KDiff3-preferences (menu "Settings"->"Configure KDiff3") has + a section called "Directory Merge" with these options: +

Recursive Directories:

Select whether to search directories + recursively.

File Pattern(s):

Only files that match any pattern here will + be put in the tree. More than one pattern may be specified here by using + the semicolon ";" as separator. Valid wildcards: '*' and '?'. (e.g. "*.cpp;*.h"). + Default is "*". This pattern is not used on directories.

File Anti-Pattern(s):

Files that match this pattern + will be excluded from the tree. More than one pattern may be specified here + via using the semicolon ";" as separator. Valid wildcards: '*' and '?'. Default + is "*.orig;*.o;*.obj".

Directory Anti-Pattern(s):

Directories that match this pattern + will be excluded from the tree. More than one pattern may be specified here + via using the semicolon ";" as separator. Valid wildcards: '*' and '?'. Default + is "CVS;deps;.svn".

Use CVS-Ignore:

+ Ignore files and directories that would also be ignored by CVS. + Many automatically generated files are ignored by CVS. + The big advantage is that this can be directory specific via a local ".cvsignore"-file. + (See info:/cvs/cvsignore.)

Find Hidden Files and Directories:

On some file systems files + have an "Hidden"-attribute. On other systems a filename starting with a dot + "." causes it to be hidden. This option allows you to decide whether to + include these files in the tree or not. Default is on.

Follow File Links:

For links to files: When disabled, then + the symbolic links are compared. When enabled, then the files behind the + links are compared. Default is off.

Follow Directory Links:

For links to directories: When disabled, + then the symbolic links will be compared. When enabled then the link will + be treated like a directory and it will be scanned recursively. (Note that + the program doesn't check if the link is "recursive". So for example a directory + that contains a link to the directory would cause an infinite loop, and after + some time when the stack overflows or all memory is used up, crash the program.) + Default is off.

Case Sensitive Filename Comparison:

+ Default is false on Windows, true for other operating systems.

File Comparison Mode:

Binary Comparison:: + This is the default file comparison mode. +
Full Analysis:: + Do a full analysis of each file and show the statistics information columns. + (Number of solved, unsolved, nonwhite and white conflicts.) + The full analysis is slower than a simple binary analysis, and much + slower when used on files that don't contain text. + (Specify the appropriate file-antipatterns.) +
Trust the modification date:: If you compare big directories + over a slow network, it might be faster to compare the modification dates + and file length alone. But this speed improvement comes with the price of + a little uncertainty. Use this option with care. Default is off.
Trust the size:: + Similar to trusting the modification date. No real comparison happens. Two + files are considered equal if their file-sizes are equal. This is useful + when the file-copy operation didn't preserve the modification date. + Use this option with care. Default is off.

Synchronize Directories:

Activates "Sync-Mode" when two directories + are compared and no explicit destination directory was specified. In this + mode the proposed operations will be chosen so that both source directories + are equal afterwards. Also the merge result will be written to both directories. + Default is off.

Copy newer instead of merging:

Instead of merging the proposed + operation will copy the newer source if changes happened. (Considered unsafe, + because it implies that you know, that the other file hasn't been edited + too. Check to make sure in every case.) Default is off.

Backup files:

If a file or complete directory is replaced + by another or is deleted then the original version will be renamed with an + ".orig" extension. If an old backup file with ".orig" extension already exists + then this will be deleted without backup. This also affects the normal merging + of single files, not only in directory-merge mode. Default is on.