WinMerge & ASP.NET Filter for WinMerge

I've been using WinMerge for a few months now and really like it. It is available on SourceForge.

The latest stable build as of this writing is WinMerge 2.4.6.

I have been using WinMerge to compare ASP.NET projects on my local workstation with my company's server located in a different state over a VPN. It performs very well considering the network topology.

It is a timesaver and I wanted to thank the folks that built it, maintain it, and support it.

I searched the NET for an ASP.NET filter for WinMerge and found one on Jon Galloway's blog: JonGalloway.ToString(). This filter got me close but I decided to approach it from the other direction by creating and exclusive filter.

Here is my filter:

============== Begin file =================

## This is a directory/file filter for WinMerge
## This filter lets through only files ASP.NET developers care about
## Based in part on a filter found on JonGalloway's blog: JonGalloway.ToString()
## http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2004/10/05/237984.aspx

name: ASP.NET Devel

## This is an exclusive filter
## (it lets through only matching files)
def: exclude

## Filters for filenames begin with f:
## Filters for directories begin with d:

f: \.xml$
f: \.xlst$
f: \.dtd$
f: \.html$
f: \.htm$
f: \.css$
f: \.gif$
f: \.bmp$
f: \.jpg$
f: \.png$
f: \.js$
f: \.dll$
f: \.aspx$
f: \.asmx$
f: \.ascx$
f: \.vb$
f: \.resx$
f: \.cs$
f: \.js$
f: \.vbproj$
f: \.csproj$
f: \.sln$
f: \.webinfo$
f: \.config$

d: \\*$ ## Subdirectories

============== End file =================

One drawback with the current filter implementation in WinMerge is that an exclusive filter excludes only files and directories that match the patterns listed in the filter but it doesn't exclude a "negative pattern". It sounds like this might be addressed in the future. Here is a link to a forum posting on this filtering issue. kimmov started a thread in the developer forum regarding this issue. Despite this minor shortcoming, I think it is a great tool to have in your arsenal.

Security Training Modules: Regex, SQL Injection, etc.

Keith Brown has put together some great labs available on Channel 9 that include 5-10 minute demos (videos) with lab exercises. They are short and sweet. Check them out.

Info on Regular Expressions

Here is a compilation of information on tools, books, website links that explore the world of Regular Expressions

---

PowerGrep:

Windows grep Software to Search (and Replace) through Files and Folders on Your PC and Network; The Most Powerful GREP Tool for Windows

PowerGREP is a powerful Windows grep tool. Quickly search through large numbers of files on your PC or network, including text and binary files, compressed archives, MS Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PDF files, etc. Find the information you want with powerful text patterns (regular expressions) specifying the form of what you want, instead of literal text. Search and replace with one or many regular expressions to comprehensively maintain web sites, source code, reports, etc. Extract statistics and knowledge from logs files and large data sets.
==============================================
Edit Pad Pro: great text editor with Regex support
==============================================
Expresso: great regex builder and learning tool
Link to original source code
==============================================
UnxUtils:
Port of the most important GNU utilities to Windows
This is where you can get EGREP

The Regulator: is an advanced Regular expressions testing tool, featuring syntax highlighting and web-service integration with Regexlib.com's database of online regular expressions.

More on Regulator at: http://regex.osherove.com/

Tutorials:
==============================================
Regular Expressions Lab on Channel 9

How To: Use Regular Expressions to Constrain Input in ASP.NET

How To: Protect From Injection Attacks in ASP.NET

Good Sites:
==============================================
Google Group: Regex


The Premier Web Site about Regular Expressions

Best book on regex, bar none is: Mastering Regular Expressions, Second Edition

By Jeffrey E. F. Friedl
Second Edition July 2002
ISBN: 0-596-00289-0
484 pages, $39.95 US, $61.95 CA, £28.50 UK (cheaper on Amazon below):

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex2/
On Amazon

=========================

A Tao of Regular Expressions

Using Regular Expressions

Regular expression: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions

Perl regular expressions man(ual) page


Learning to Use Regular Expressions

Welcome to RegExLib.com, the Internet's first Regular Expression Library. Currently we have indexed 1229 expressions from 789 contributors around the world. We hope you'll find this site useful and come back whenever you're looking for an expression for a particular task, or have just figured out a new expression that does something useful.

Blogs about Regex


=========== Not REGEX specific, but very useful =======
WinMerge
WinMerge is an Open Source visual text file differencing and merging tool for Win32 platforms. It is highly useful for determining what has changed between project versions, and then merging changes between versions.
==============================================