Can't get DIFF Output File (not HTML)

[asjones987]

I was trying to generate a TXT output file of differences (what are the changes in the new file vs the old file).
In looking at the official command line docs.
https://manual.winmerge.org/en/Command_line.html

In further reading I see references to
-cfg ReportFiles/ReportType=0 (or other number).
-cfg ReportFiles/IncludeFileCmpReport=1
-cfg Settings/DirViewExpandSubdirs=1

My impression is a few of these might do what I am after (with some tweaks). Can anyone provide guidance and info?
I was doing a compare of text files
winmergeu /m Full /noninteractive <old file path/name> <new file path/name> /o c:\WinMerge-test\

Any guidance, thoughts, directions?

thanks

Alan

[sdottaka]

Unfortunately, WinMerge cannot output file comparison reports in any format other than HTML. (-cfg ReportFiles/ReportType=0 is for folder comparison)
There is also no command line option for generating patches.

[asjones987]

this is very disappointing and surprising .... as the GUI has this under Tools -> Generate Patch.
I had looked though the issues log but did not see a reference is this on the roadmap?

Are there any suggestions for a good OSS solution on Windows? I did some initial looking and all i found was older unsupported stuff.

thanks

Alan

note: I looked at
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/
http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/

[sdottaka]

Are there any suggestions for a good OSS solution on Windows? I did some initial looking and all i found was older unsupported stuff.

Is there a problem with the Windows fc.exe command?

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/diffutils.htm is pretty old, but it also worked on Windows 11. (I tried unzipping and using the Binaries Zip file and the Dependencies Zip file)

[asjones987]

I did not realize the Windows fc.exe command was threre... the output in my test was not clear regarding differences (+/-) like in the normal package format.

really surprised there is not more out there for this