Very Computer

I'm looking into a tool that can merge two text files,
the old revision and the new revision of the files into one file.

These files are usually user specific configuration files
that must be upgraded when a new set of software is installed.

I found myself wasting a lot of time manually comparing and
merging the files and am looking into some user friendly utility
written in C, shell, perl, tcl or any other standard language that
can help me doing this job.

Thanks for any input,

Nir Baroz
--------
Nir Baroz                        Encore Computer Corporation

                                 Tel: 1-305-587-2900 Fax: 1-305-797-5807
--
Nir Baroz                        Encore Computer Corporation

                                 Tel: 1-305-587-2900 Fax: 1-305-797-5807

: I'm looking into a tool that can merge two text files,
: the old revision and the new revision of the files into one file.

: These files are usually user specific configuration files
: that must be upgraded when a new set of software is installed.

: I found myself wasting a lot of time manually comparing and
: merging the files and am looking into some user friendly utility
: written in C, shell, perl, tcl or any other standard language that
: can help me doing this job.

I depends on how you want to merge the files.  You can always do

cat file1 file2 >file3

Assuming you want a more intelligent merge, Perl is probably good for it, but
it depends on the nature of the files.

Beirne

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: I'm looking into a tool that can merge two text files,
: the old revision and the new revision of the files into one file.

: These files are usually user specific configuration files
: that must be upgraded when a new set of software is installed.

: I found myself wasting a lot of time manually comparing and
: merging the files and am looking into some user friendly utility
: written in C, shell, perl, tcl or any other standard language that
: can help me doing this job.

This is what "diff" is for
diff oldfile newfile
will show you any changes made between the two files.  When you do this, it
will show which files contain the difference (< indicates oldfile in my
example and > indicates newfile) and some funny codes between the lines.
Those are "sed" instructions to merge or change one file to the other.  See
both "sed" and "diff" in the man pages.
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