Ace Comparator Features

Ace’s smart resynch feature uses a sophisticated resynchronization algorithm to successfully compare files with hundreds of different lines. Ace actually understands the structure of a program file, and so can display only the "real" difference between files. For example you can choose to ignore white space/indenting differences, case changes and even comment changes. This lets you concentrate on whether the two versions do the same thing, rather than just look different!

Ace comes with option files for Basic, C, MASM, Pascal, DOS batch, ASCII, xBase and binary files. You can compare other languages by using the general free format and fixed format language types. There is no limit on how long unequal areas can be before a successful re-sync (unlike some difference programs!). So you can see the real differences even after 100’s of lines have been added or deleted! Plus Ace has a true binary file compare - even compare OBJs and EXEs to look for changed variable names!

Ace’s heavy duty "diff engine" can handle millions of comparisons, saving you from doing the same!

Ace comes with both a pull-down menu interface for interactive use and a command line interface for batch file use. The file differences may be viewed on screen with Ace’s smart change viewer. You can jump from one change to the next using either the mouse or keyboard, or just move about the changes. Changes can also be saved to a file, or Ace can even create a merged file from both versions. This is great when two programmers have edited the same file and you want to combine both sets of bug fixes!

You can also run Ace from batch files by using its command line interface. Changes are either displayed on screen, or can be redirected using standard DOS piping (> and |). To compare all the files in one directory with those in another ACE comes with a FREE Multi file comparisons utility.

Why spend time comparing versions by hand after one of those "3 am debugging sessions" when Ace can do all the work for you!

Ace comes with configuration files for the languages mentioned above, and you may also create you own custom configurations. Options include the ability to ignore differences in comments, white space differences and case changes. Tabs may be converted to a variable number of spaces or left alone. Control characters may either be displayed in "^X" format or as hexadecimal. With Ace, you are in control!

Other difference utilities don’t understand the syntax of your programs. So they will report lines as being different when only the indenting or a comment has changed. When you are trying to look for the changes that affect the program logic looking at all those "trash changes" is a waste of your time! Ace is smarter. It understands program syntax and can ignore changes to comments, indenting, white space and case. So you only spend you time looking at the changes that matter. Of course sometimes you do want to see every single change, and if you chose Ace, can show them to you too.