Ignoring date column in beyond compare file comparison

Question

I'm using BeyondCompare3 i've two files with lines containing with this kind of format.

abc,bbbb,cdef,test,14:45:23.123,info,comment

I want to omit the date from the comparison.

I've selected Session > Session Settings > Importance Tab > Edit Grammar button and created a new rule.

After entering an Element name, I've selected Category of Basic, checked Regular Expression and searching for Text. [0-9]{1,2}:[0-9]{1,2}:[0-9]{1,2}.[0-9]{1,3}. I've also tried /[0-9]{1,2}:[0-9]{1,2}:[0-9]{1,2}.[0-9]{1,3}/.

I then click 'ignore unimportant differences' on the tool bar.

I was hoping this would ignore the date column in the comparison. But it doesn't.

Any pointers on this or other tools/scripts would be very much appreciated.

John.

Solution 1

In Beyond Compare 4.1.9, you can ignore Modified Date by unchecking "Compare timestamps" in tab "Comparison" of the "Rules" window.

Solution 2

You can also add a regular expression to define text to be ignored (Unimportant text) in the Rules section like so:

https://www.scootersoftware.com/vbulletin/forum/beyond-compare-2-discussion/beyond-help/2292-set-to-ignore-date-and-timestamp-difference

Comments

[Alexander Stohr]

hmm, the curly braces seem to be either undocumented or are only valid with newer versions. (have not tested it now)