The default patch file viewer is messy (ie. no side by side diff view etc). I tried setting the path of beyondCompare exe in "Settings->Unified Diff Viewer->custom", but beyond compare also behaves same as default diff tool. Is there a way to atleast allow side by side diff in patch files ? If so, what is the method ? My aim is to allow emailing of changes so that they can be reviewed before I commit them :)
Mishal
I've never found any, but the solution that I usually use is to simply apply the patch file to a pristine checkout of the tree, and then do a "regular" diff (my preferred tool is diffuse) to review the changes in context.
The problem with "raw" patch files is that they only provide a few lines of context before and after the change, which often isn't enough.
If you don't like the patch, simply revert the changes and don't commit!
SVN 1.7 I think was released since this answer was posted, and I landed here because I wanted to show my newly created patch file with syntax coloring, a la view unified diff in TortoiseSvn.
It turns out that Notepad++ automatically syntax colors my file correctly if I give it the filetype of "patch"!
Patches have been around a long time but SVN is now supporting them more fully. See for example the documentation; http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/tsvn-dug-patch.html
For how to create a patch file, see this nice document that describes various methods including mine, WinMerge; http://docs.moodle.org/dev/How_to_create_a_patch#Creating_a_patch_using_WinMerge
Beyond Compare 4 allows you to view patch files created by SVN. The top window in Beyond Compare is a tree structure, allowing you to navigate folders and files by name. Revision numbers are present in the left and right diff windows.
Create the patch
svn diff -r 5922:6116 > CodeReview.patch
Open the patch in Beyond Compare 4
If you have access to a Mac OS X machine, PatchViewer sounds like it might do what you're looking for: http://appledeveloper.com.au/products/patchviewer/
(Disclaimer: I am the author of PatchViewer.)
You can view a diff file (a patch generated by diff tool) using Kompare from KDE environment. I used it before on Linux, but today I found how to install it on Windows. Here is an installation instruction from a blog "Kompare - the only valuable diff for M$Windows":
- Go to gnuwin32 diffutils, download and install.
- Download kdewin installer and launch it.
- After installing kde4win - start kompare and in "Diff" section show him where your diff.exe (from gnuwin32 diffutils) is located.
- Restart Kompare and it's ready to use!
You can also add an association with .diff file format and now you can view any diff files. For me it works great.
I like to use KDiff3, it's packed with functions, very user friendly and available for all popular platforms. It can also integrate with TortoiseSVN.
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2895005/tortoisesvn-good-patch-file-viewer