Using merged report

Merged report is a special report type, which can be used to combine parts of compared files in resulting text file. Sample usages include extraction of same part, automatic merging according to single rule, etc.

Structure of Merged report

Merged report is a plain text file, which includes specified portions of original files. When generating such report, Compare It! splits original files to following parts and sections according to comparison result:

Combination of same and following changes blocks is refered as section. Note that first section of a file can consist of single changes block (in case file is beginning with changes); similarly, if file ends with same line, last section will include only one same block.

To configure Merged report, you specify which blocks and in which order to include in report for each section. Here is description of all blocks you can combine:

Same text [S]	Same section - block of text between two changes
Source diff [L]	Changes block from source(left) file
Target diff [R]	Changes block from target(right) file
Source only [A]	Block which only exist in source file
Target only [B]	Block which only exist in target file

Letter in brackets is used for command line, see below.

The report generation is simple: Compare It! scans compared files, and for each section copies selected lines to report file.

Using command line to generate Merged report

As all other report types, Merged report can be generated with command line, without user interaction. To make a report with already configured options, simply call
wincmp3.exe file1 file2 /G:M report_file .

But you can also specify configuration in command line by using shortcuts described in table:
wincmp3.exe file1 file2 /G:M+SLAB report_file .

Let's see what will make this call:

1. Same lines are included in report (S);
2. From 2 changes blocks, only left(source) part is copied (L), right block is discarded;
3. When encountering source-only block, it is copied to report (A);
4. Target-only block is also copied to report (B).

As result, report file is just source file, with "target-only" lines added.

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