Three-way Compare

You can compare three versions of a resource.  This is most useful when merging resources or when there is a conflict during synchronization.  

Conflicts occur when two developers add a version from the stream to the workbench, each of them modifies it, one developer releases the resource, then the other attempts to release the resource. The three-way compare allows you to compare all three of these versions.

Interpreting Compare Results

The Synchronize view allows you to view the differences in the contents of 2 versions of a file.  It also allows you to view all the differences of a third version of a resource. Typically  the third version is a version of the file that each of the two resource versions being compared was based upon.  This third version is referred to as the common ancestor.

It is possible that a common ancestor for two conflicting resource versions cannot be determined, (e.g. a resource with the same name and path is created and released by 2 different developers). I this case the compare becomes a regular two-way compare.  

In a three-way compare the workbench shows you:

The sections that differ in all three files are highlighted as differences.  The common ancestor is displayed in the top pane of the text compare pane.  Conflict are shown in red, incoming changes in gray, and outgoing changes in blue.

Related Topics:

Compare Editor