Kudos and wishes for Data Viewer

First, kudos on Beyond Compare. I've been a faithful, registered user and evangelist since roughly 1997. The product is absolutely wonderful. I recently upgraded from the 1.8 version so I could make use of the data viewer plug-in. It exceeded my expectations--allowing me to specify not only key columns, but then to even have the ability to designate a tolerance on a numeric field!!!! Wonderful is the word the comes to mind.

Now for my wishlist regarding the data viewer!!! :-)

1. ** Critical ** Regarding the reporting options. The best from my perspective would be adding an HTML option. That makes sending results to end-users very easy and portable. The plain file report is almost usable except that it can leave out critical contextual information. For instance, in a compare of employees' salaries, the file report shows that line 'n' has a difference in the salary field, but you don't know for whom because only the salary is shown. If what I wrote here wasn't clear, let me know because it's critical.

2. Maybe this is already possible, but I didn't find a way to make it work. When running the compares from scripts, it appears that the plug-ins are ignored. Is there a way to use them in batch runs?

Kind regards,
Michael Rhodes
Deloitte

[Erik]

1. Additional report formats and including keys instead of line numbers in plain text reports are on the wishlist.

2. Currently, scripts only use plug-ins in a compare rules-based command, where the associated rule is handled by a plug-in. What commands would you want for plug-ins?

[fnord5]

Can you give me an example of how to use the compare rules-based in a script?

Can I designate the rule I want to use? Or does it just use the default?

Curiously,

John
:confused:

[Erik]

load C:\ D:\
expand all
select diff.files newer.files older.files
compare rules-based
select exact.files

...



Also, I should mention that you can force all comparisons to use rules with criteria rules-based.

You cannot choose the rule or plug-in from within a script.
However, you can change the handler and file types for rules in the Options dialog.