This article explains how to set up external compare tools with Teamprise. Often, users may have a preference for a particular visual compare tool for particular types of structured files or folders. For example, a user may wish to configure a compare tool with special knowledge of XML structure, or one which has knowledge of a proprietary file type.
Any tool which accepts two arguments, the left and right input files, is supported. Filenames are specified as full paths.
Command-line arguments are expanded for tokens before being passed to the compare tool. All compare tools must accept two arguments (the left and right input files) and may accept other arguments (labels, which your merge tool may add as user interface elements for additional details) These arguments are presented as "tokens" in the configuration, which will be substituted by Teamprise before calling the external compare tool.
%1 - The path to the server's version of the file (the "original" file)
%2 - The path to your modified version of the file (the "local" file)
%5 - Diff command-line options (currently unused, retained for compatibility with Microsoft Team Explorer)
%6 - Label for original file (includes details about the server file)
%7 - Label for baseline file (includes details about the local file)
Arguments for external merge tools are split on whitespace, unless quoted by double quotes. To embed a literal double-quote inside a quoted string, use two double quotes. For example:
Two argumentswould passTwoas the first argument andargumentsas the second argument to your merge tool.
"This is a single argument"would passThis is a single argumentas a single argument to your merge tool.
"This "" embeds a double quote"would passThis " embeds a double quoteas a single argument to your merge tool.
Tokens are implicitly double-quoted before being passed to the shell. That is, you do not need to wrap % tokens in double quotes, it is handled for you.