SVN branch compare

Question

How do I compare one branch with another? I want to compare a branch with the latest revision in trunk.

Solution 1

You could start with:

svn diff http://REPOS/trunk http://REPOS/branches/B

(Where http://REPOS is your repository path including the parents of trunk and branches.)

This will print a large quantity of text, including all the textual changes but not the binary changes except to say where and when they occurred.

Solution 2

If you are just looking for high level of what files are different and do not want to see all the contents, use:

svn diff ^/trunk ^/branches/dev --summarize

(This compares trunk and dev branch)

Solution 3

I usually check out the two branches (or the branch and the trunk) into directories. Then I use a graphical tool like Kompare or similar (depending on your preferences, operating system,...). This is really helpful for me when I need to perform complex merges.

Solution 4

As lack of reputation won't let me add this as a comment against an existing answer, I'm having to add it as a separate one.

A useful option to svn diff for me was --ignore-properties. My two branches had ended up identical code wise, but with different merge histories.

Using --ignore-properties allowed me to prove to myself that this was the case, without wading through the large quantity of "svn:mergeinfo" property changes.

Solution 5

Thanks for the info guys, I would add something to improve the readability of the diff results.If you used: svn diff svn://url:9090/branches/PRD_0002 svn://url:9090/branches/TST_0003 >svn_diff_filename.txt

You can use: findstr "Index:" C:\path\svn_diff_filename.txt >svn_diff_file_list.txt

That will bring you a readable list of files that have any differences.

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Comments

[SimonJ]

Won't this just tell you what's changed in trunk since the last commit to the branch? Apologies if I'm missing something - it's getting late here...

[Ether]

You don't need to look for the latest revision number in each branch: simply use HEAD. But this isn't what the OP was asking for -- he wanted to compare between his branch and trunk, not between two revisions in the same branch.

[tekumara]

Thanks! Your answer led me to this tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/tsvn-dug-diff.ht‌​ml which explains how to do the same with TortoiseSVN

[cchamberlain]

Shorthand -> svn diff ^/trunk ^/branches/B

[Sandburg]

Is there a way to hide the inner diff part? That means to only show revision, author, date, file list.

[ephemerr]

For me in Linux I have to use escapes: svn diff \^/[SUBPROJECT]/develop \^/[SUBPROJECT]/feature/myfeature/