/BDS command line switch no longer works

[Gerd]

Once there was a command-line switch /BDS causing BC to pop up a dialogue box (Select Revisions) showing the contents of Delphi’s __history.

Current BC4 version no longer displays this dialogue. Instead, only the left half of a text comparison session is filled (which is not particularly useful).

This happens with Delphi 2007 and a copy of BCCompare.exe renamed to BCDiffer.exe. There’s no problem with Delphi XE7.

I also called both BC4 and BC3 directly using the /BDS switch on a command line. Version 3.1.12.18414 shows the dialogue, Version 4.0.0.18847 does not.

Looks like a bug.

Regards,
Gerd

[Zoë]

Support for the /BDS switch was removed in favor the integrated IDE expert that has been shipped as part of RAD Studio since XE. There's a version of it for Delphi 2007 still available from here, though I don't remember whether it relied on the /BDS switch for its History Compare or not. The more recent versions use the OpenTools API to pull in the full history, including any version control provided revisions.

[Gerd]

Support for the /BDS switch was removed in favor the integrated IDE expert that has been shipped as part of RAD Studio since XE.

You don’t need your pre-XE customers, don’t you? Delphi 2007 is not outdated at all, since there is no working replacement for non-Unicode strings.

Delphi 2009 started a completeley new Delphi line, rather disconnected from previous versions, very incompatible and breaking huge amounts of code. That’s why Delphi 2007 probably will live for decades.

Later addition: You forgot to remove the /BDS switch from the help file. So it still looks like a bug.

There's a version of it for Delphi 2007 still available from here

Unfortunately, this is incomplete as you need to find an outdated copy of BCDiffer.exe which once was available to Delphi 2006 users only, but never to Delphi 2007 users. Otherwise you need to know that BCDiffer.exe is just another name for BCompare.exe, or was just another name until Scooter software became incompatible as well as Borland did.

My customers do not tolerate incompatibilities in my software. They even insist in perpetual continuation of certain bugs. Improvements are welcome only as long as old functionality is kept intact.

I tend to expect the same from my tool makers. As soon as a tool becomes incompatible, I stop updates and begin looking for a replacement. For now, BC3 is good enough and I will take the bitter pill of not using BC4 for Delphi 2007 projects and, consequently, for more modern projects as well. Time may force future decisions.

Regards,
Gerd

[Aaron]

Thanks for the feedback and sorry for the trouble. We will be updating the Help file to document that we weren't able to bring this feature forward. We're familiar with trying to avoid incompatibility; several of our script and reporting commands have continuing 'quirky' behavior specifically to allow them to come forward.

I talked with the developers and if we were able to rework the newer version against 2007, we'd still lose History support. I'd suggest continuing to pair BC3 for Delphi 2007 projects, as the latest BC3 build still fully supports /bds. We also fully support having BC3 and BC4 on the same system at the same time (either regular or Portable installs). We continue to host the latest minor release of each of our major versions, generally for older OS compatibility but applicable here.