Package org.eclipse.compare

package org.eclipse.compare

Provides support for performing structural and textual compare operations on arbitrary data and displaying the results.

Package Specification

The class CompareUI defines the entry point to initiate a configurable compare operation on arbitrary resources. The result of the compare is opened into a compare editor where the details can be browsed and edited in dynamically selected structure and content viewers.

A compare operation must be implemented as a subclass of CompareEditorInput. A CompareEditorInput runs a (potentially lengthy) compare operation under progress monitor control, creates a UI for drilling-down into the compare results, tracks the dirty state of the result in case of merge, and saves any changes that occured during a merge.

The NavigationAction is used to navigate (step) through the individual differences of a CompareEditorInput.

An instance of CompareConfiguration configures various UI aspects of compare/merge viewers like title labels and images, or whether a side of a merge viewer is editable. It is passed to the CompareEditorInput on creation.

When implementing a hierarchical compare operation as a subclass of CompareEditorInput clients have to provide a tree of objects where each node implements the interface org.eclipse.compare.structuremergeviewer.IStructureComparator. This interface is used by the hierarchical differencing engine (org.eclipse.compare.structuremergeviewer.Differencer) to walk the tree.
In addition every leaf of the tree must implement the IStreamContentAccessor or IEncodedStreamContentAccessor interfaces in order to give the differencing engine access to its stream content and to its encoding (with IEncodedStreamContentAccessor).

The abstract class BufferedContent provides a default implementation for the IStreamContentAccessor and IContentChangeNotifier interfaces. Its subclass ResourceNode adds an implementation for the IStructureComparator and ITypedElement interfaces based on Eclipse workbench resources (org.eclipse.core.resources.IResource). It can be used without modification as the input to the differencing engine.

The ZipFileStructureCreator is an implementation of the org.eclipse.compare.structuremergeviewer.IStructureCreator interface and makes the contents of a zip archive available as a hierarchical structure of IStructureComparators which can be easily compared by the differencing engine (org.eclipse.compare.structuremergeviewer.Differencer). It is a good example for how to make structured files available to the hierarchical compare functionality of the Compare plugin.

The EditionSelectionDialog is a simple selection dialog where one input element can be compared against a list of historic variants (editions) of the same input element. The dialog can be used to implement functions like "Replace with Version" or "Replace with Edition" on workbench resources.

In addition it is possible to specify a subsection of the input element (e.g. a method in a Java source file) by means of a path. In this case the dialog compares only the subsection (as specified by the path) with the corresponding subsection in the list of editions. This functionality can be used to implement "Replace with Method Edition" for the Java language.

The EditionSelectionDialog requires that the editions implement the IStreamContentAccessor and IModificationDate interfaces. The HistoryItem is a convenience class that implements these interfaces for IFileState objects.

The CompareViewerPane is a convenience class which provides a label and local toolbar for a compare viewer (or any other subclass of a JFace Viewer).
Its abstract subclass CompareViewerSwitchingPane supports dynamic viewer switching, that is the viewer installed in the pane is dynamically determined by the pane's input object. Both classes are useful if you want to use compare viewers outside the context of a compare editor, for example in a dialog or wizard.

A Splitter is an extension of a SashForm that supports nesting, maximizing of panes, and propagating the visibility state of panes.

The interface IStreamMerger defines a single operation for performing a three-way merge on three input streams. The merged result is written to an output stream.
Clients must implement this interface when contributing new mergers to the org.eclipse.compare.streamMergers extension point. New IStreamMergers can be created for registered types with the createStreamMerger methods of CompareUI.

Related Packages

Package	Description
org.eclipse.compare.contentmergeviewer	Support for compare and merge viewers which show the content side-by-side.
org.eclipse.compare.internal
org.eclipse.compare.patch	Provides support for applying and working with patches.
org.eclipse.compare.rangedifferencer	Provides support for finding the differences between two or three sequences of comparable entities.
org.eclipse.compare.structuremergeviewer	Provides support for finding and displaying the differences between hierarchically structured data.

Class	Description
BufferedContent	Abstract implementation for a buffered IStreamContentAccessor.
CompareConfiguration	A CompareConfiguration object controls various UI aspects of compare/merge viewers like title labels and images, or whether a side of a merge viewer is editable.
CompareEditorInput	A compare operation which can present its results in a special editor.
CompareNavigator	Supports cross-pane navigation through the differences of a compare container.
CompareUI	The class CompareUI defines the entry point to initiate a configurable compare operation on arbitrary resources.
CompareViewerPane	A CompareViewerPane is a convenience class which installs a CLabel and a Toolbar in a ViewForm.
CompareViewerSwitchingPane	A custom CompareViewerPane that supports dynamic viewer switching.
EditionSelectionDialog	Deprecated. Use an org.eclipse.team.ui.history.IHistoryPageSource in conjunction with the org.eclipse.team.ui.history.IHistoryView or a HistoryPageCompareEditorInput.
HistoryItem	A combination IFileState and ITypedElement that can be used as an input to a compare viewer or other places where an IStreamContentAccessor is needed.
ICompareContainer	A compare container is used to represent any UI that can contain compare viewers.
ICompareFilter	A filter that can be applied during the comparison of documents that can be used to customize the detection of text differences via the compareFilter extension point.
ICompareInputLabelProvider	A label provider that provides the label and image for the left, right and ancestor sides for a compare input being shown in compare/merge viewers.
ICompareNavigator	A ICompareNavigator is used to navigate through the individual differences of a CompareEditorInput or another type of Compare container.
IContentChangeListener	An IContentChangeListener is informed about content changes of a IContentChangeNotifier.
IContentChangeNotifier	Interface common to all objects that provide a means for registering for content change notification.
IEditableContent	Common interface for objects with editable contents.
IEditableContentExtension	Extends the IEditableContent interface to support validate edit.
IEncodedStreamContentAccessor	Extension for IStreamContentAccessor.
IModificationDate	Common interface for objects with a modification date.
INavigatable	Interface that allow clients to navigate through the changes shown in a compare pane.
IPropertyChangeNotifier	Interface common to all objects that provide a means for registering for property change notification.
IResourceProvider
ISharedDocumentAdapter	An ISharedDocumentAdapter is used to map an ITypedElement to a shared document for the purposes of editing.
IStreamContentAccessor	An IStreamContentAccessor object represents a set of bytes which can be accessed by means of a stream.
IStreamMerger	Deprecated. Clients should use org.eclipse.team.core.mapping.IStorageMerger instead.
ITypedElement	Interface for getting the name, image, and type for an object.
IViewerCreator	A factory object for Viewer.
LabelContributionItem
NavigationAction	A NavigationAction is used to navigate through the individual differences of a CompareEditorInput.
ResourceNode	A ResourceNode wraps an IResources so that it can be used as input for the differencing engine (interfaces IStructureComparator and ITypedElement) and the ReplaceWithEditionDialog (interfaces ITypedElement and IModificationDate).
SharedDocumentAdapter	An implementation of ISharedDocumentAdapter that provides default behavior for the methods of that interface.
Splitter	The Splitter adds support for nesting to a SashForm.
ZipFileStructureCreator	This implementation of the IStructureCreator interface makes the contents of a zip archive available as a hierarchical structure of IStructureComparators.