How do I Use "Beyond Compare" With VC/m?
Applies to: VC/m 3.0 and later
Beyond Compare is a Windows visual differencing tool from Scooter Software (www.scootersoftware.com). It can be used to compare VC/m components. We recommend BC version 2.3 or later.
VC/m presents its repository to BC as an FTP site.
Starting VC/m's server
The routine %vc830 is VC/m's FTP server.
- First time start it interactively: D ^%vc830. You will be prompted for a port number. The default, 21, is the standard FTP port, so if this is already in use on your server you'll need to pick another, such as 1021.
- After the first manual start, the server can be started without interaction as follows: D StartUp^%vc830. Consider adding this into your VC/m server's startup processing.
- To stop the BC Server: D Stop^%vc830.
- To test its status, use $$Running^%vc830 which returns 1 if running, else 0.
Using BC with VC/m
- Start BC.
- Open a folder comparison session. Specify the following for the Left Folder:
ftp://username@VCmServer:port
where:
- 'username' is your VC/m username
- 'VCmServer' is the hostname or IP address of the server where the BC Server is running
- 'port' is the port number that server is running on (e.g. 1021)
When prompted for a password, enter your username's VC/m password (this is often blank).
- If connection succeeds you see four folders on the left side of the screen: Change Requests, Components, Locations, and Objects.
- To compare two versions of an object, expand Objects. Then expand one of the objects. The pan-handle character substitutes for the / character that normally appears in a VC/m object name. A subfolder is shown for each version of the object. Ignore the three-character prefix, which is there to sort things so the latest version comes first. Now expand two versions you'd like to compare. A folder whose name starts with the # denotes the master location, Expand this to see the components of the object version at that location. The folder named '~' expands to show all the other active locations having this object version. Expand each to see the components there. As far as BC is concerned, these components are files that you can compare. For example, right-click on one. Choose "Compare To". Your pointer changes. Click on the second component. BC compares these.
- To see the difference between all objects at two single-version locations, first expand the top-level Locations folder. Click on the first location, then Ctrl+click on the second. Now right-click on either of the two selected locations and choose "Set as Base Folders". The right-hand pane loads with the objects present at one location, the left with those at the other. BC starts comparing them.
- To explore the differences associated with a change request, expand the Change Requests folder, then that of the desired one. The "Brief" subfolder contains two further subfolders, "After" and "Before" that are designed to be set as base folders or specified for "Compare Contents…". The "Full" subfolder is designed for the case where several versions of an object have accumulated on a change request and youu want to compare adjacent versions.
Tips
- For effective yet efficient comparisons, set BC's Comparison Control (the scales icon on the toolbar) so that "Compare Contents" uses "Size and CRC".
- To make object lists more readable, use Tools, Options, go to the Fonts section and choose a fixed pitch font such as Courier New for the Folder Viewer listings.
- The locations visible through BC are dictated VC/m access codes in the same way as in the browser interface.
- A component opened in the BC File Viewer from within the location holding the master of the component's object is editable. Thus merging of branches can be performed through BC prior to declaring a merge in VC/m.
- CLS components are stored as the XML export format used by Caché. This includes an export timestamp and a checksum. To prevent these giving false positives on differences performed between components retrieved from M-format storage (i.e. namespaces), define a BC rule (Tools, Options, then the Rules section).
| Name | CLS components |
| Associated with | CLS.* |
| Importance | add two Delimited items as follows: |
| 1 | Beginning with | <Export generator="Cache" |
| Ending with | > |
| Stopping at end of line |
| 2 | Beginning with | <Checksum value= |
| Ending with | > |
| Stopping at end of line |
Comparison Control can be set to use rules rather than size, CRC or binary compare. Rules are always used when a pair of files are opened in File Viewer.
This is just a short introduction to what can be done when using BC with VC/m. Learn about BC's facilities using its online help. Remember, as far as BC is concerned, VC/m is just an FTP site with folders and files.
Last reviewed: April 17, 2007
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