Git Diff with Beyond Compare

Question

I have succeeded in getting git to start Beyond Compare 3 as a diff tool however, when I do a diff, the file I am comparing against is not being loaded. Only the latest ver

Answer 1

Run these commands for Beyond Compare 3(if the BCompare.exe path is different in your system, please replace it according to yours):

git config --global diff.tool bc3
git config --global difftool.bc3.cmd "\"c:/program files (x86)/beyond compare 3/BCompare.exe\" \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\""
git config --global difftool.prompt false

Then use git difftool

Answer 2

Windows 10, Git v2.13.2

My .gitconfig. Remember to add escape character for '\' and '"'.

[diff]
    tool = bc4
[difftool]
    prompt = false
[difftool "bc4"]
    cmd = \"C:\\Program Files\\Beyond Compare 4\\BCompare.exe\" \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\"
[merge]
    tool = bc4
[mergetool "bc4"]
    path = C:\\Program Files\\Beyond Compare 4\\BCompare.exe

You may reference setting up beyond compare as difftool for using git commands to config it.

Answer 3

I don't use extra wrapper .sh files. My environment is Windows XP, git 1.7.1 on cygwin, and Beyond Compare 3. Following is my .git/config file.

[diff]
    tool = bc3
[difftool]
    prompt = false
[difftool "bc3"]
    #use cygpath to transform cygwin path $LOCAL (something like /tmp/U5VvP1_abc) to windows path, because bc3 is a windows software
    cmd = \"c:/program files/beyond compare 3/bcomp.exe\" "$(cygpath -w $LOCAL)" "$REMOTE"
[merge]
    tool = bc3
[mergetool]
    prompt = false
[mergetool "bc3"]
    #trustExitCode = true
    cmd = \"c:/program files/beyond compare 3/bcomp.exe\" "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$BASE" "$MERGED"

Then, I use $ git difftool to compare and $ git mergetool to merge.

About trustExitCode: For a custom merge command, specify whether the exit code of the merge command can be used to determine whether the merge was successful. If this is not set to true then the merge target file timestamp is checked and the merge assumed to have been successful if the file has been updated, otherwise the user is prompted to indicate the success of the merge.

Answer 4

For whatever reason, for me, the tmp file created by git diff was being deleted before it opened in beyond compare. I had to copy it out to another location first.

cp -r $2 "/cygdrive/c/temp$2"
cygstart /cygdrive/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Beyond\ Compare\ 3/BCompare.exe "C:/temp$2" "$5"

Answer 5

Please notice you make a wrong path of $2. because you are under Cygwin but BC3 not, so you should specify a full path for it. such as "d:/cygwin$2"

Please refer my git-diff-wrapper.sh here:

$ cat ~/git-diff-wrapper.sh
#!/bin/sh
echo $2
echo $5
/cygdrive/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Beyond\ Compare\ 3/BCompare.exe "d:/programs/cygwin$2" "$5"

Good luck.

Answer 6

http://rubenlaguna.com/wp/2010/08/05/visual-difftool-cygwin-git/ has a solution that I adopted to work for BeyondCompare: http://gist.github.com/564573