[cvsnt] Cannot use WinMerge to vew revision diffs on ISO files...

[Gerhard Fiedler]

Bo Berglund wrote:

> I have just discovered a problem with using WinMerge to see the changes
> between two versions of an ISO file. 
> 
> The ISO file is a machine tool NC program and is completely text based.

I created an .iso text file. On my system the extension is associated with
a tool that handles ISO CD images.

> At first I had trouble adding it as text to the repository. Even though I
> clicked the Add as Text button in WinCvs the following commit made it a
> binary file! 
> 
> So I had to remove the file in the repository and edit the Entries file
> to get rid of the CVS registration. Then I again added it using the text
> button, but this time I looked at the result locally and sure enough it
> was marked as binary. So now before committing I edited the Entries file
> and removed the -kb marker from it. Then I could commit and it stayed as
> text.

I had the same experience (I skipped the first step though :)

It seems that the tools (TCVS in my case) use a normal cvs add without any
options when adding a file with the default text options -- which seems to
get overridden by CVSNT default options associated to file extensions.

> But now the next problem happened:
> I had a new revision to the file that i wanted to commit, but first I
> wanted to see the differences so i used the DIFF button in WinCvs. This
> brought up WinMerge normally but then it popped a message box:
> "C:\Documents and Settings\bob\Local
> Settings\Temp\G912_SERIAL_1.1_11.iso: the file cannot be accessed by the
> system"
> Which is bogus because when I go there the file is accessible and
> readable by my text editor...

FWIW, doing something similar with TCVS (set up to use WinMerge as external
diff app) works here.

> Has anyone seen anything like this? And is it a WinCvs issue or something
> with CVSNT (the binary addition) or WinMerge (the inability of diffing
> the file)???

The binary addition seems to be an interaction between the GUI tool (in
that it doesn't spec the -k options explicitly) and an CVSNT default for
.iso files. When using cvs add with explicit -k options (e.g. -ktkv), the
options seem to get preserved.

WinMerge seems to be capable of diffing .iso files if they are text files
(it does it just fine here).

So I don't think it's either of these tools.

> I am running CVSNT build 2382 on both server and client.
> WinCvs is version 2.1.1.1 (build 1)

WinMerge 2.6.12.0 Unicode
TCVS 1.10.1 RC11
CVSNT client Concurrent Versions System (CVSNT) 2.5.04 (Zen) Build 2862
CVSNT server Concurrent Versions System (CVSNT) 2.5.03 (Scorpio) Build 2382

Gerhard