Re: 3-way directory comparison behavior

[Kai Willadsen <kai willadsen gmail com>]

On 8 September 2016 at 18:38, Wohlmuth, Oliver <Oliver Wohlmuth socionext com> wrote:

Hello,

I have to merge code changes on a large directory tree. The top-level directory layout is a follows:

- DIR_V1: (version 1 source tree)
- DIR_V1_MOD: (version 1 source tree with my local modifications)
- DIR_V2: (version 2 source tree.  It is based on DIR_V1)

I invoke meld as follows: meld DIR_V1 DIR_V1_MOD DIR_V2

Now I want the see the changes between DIR_V1 <=> DIR_V1_MOD and merge them into DIR_V2

I was assuming that meld colors the files (to indicate the status) in the three columns as follows:
LEFT colum: LEFT <=> MIDDLE diff status
RIGHT colum: MIDDLE <=> RIGHT diff status
MID colum:  Superset of MIDDLE <=> LEFT + MIDDLE <=> RIGHT diff status

This way I could navigate from one change to the next in the left column to get to all my DIR_V1 <=> DIR_V1_MOD changes.

If I do a 3-way file comparison it seems to behave like this.

Can someone please explain the behavior for 3-way directory/file diffs or point me to the documentation for this?
Is there a way to get meld to behave as described above?

There isn't, no.

What you're describing is probably how folder comparison should work, but it's definitely not how it does work. The comparison status of files in a row is attached to the row as a whole, not the individual files in it. Changing this isn't impossible, but it would be a lot of work (and will probably end up with all sorts of problems and edge cases).

cheers,

Kai