Are there n-way diff tools with vertical comparison?

Question

I started using diffuse, which you can use to compare multiple files together, but it's a little useless, since you cannot horizontally compare strings when you have 20 files that you need to compare with each other, I thought maybe one a row of all 20 files displayed horizontally.

Answer 1

Vim editor can do what you ask. This is a traditional UNIX program that has been ported to almost every operating system under the sun, and it's free. In gVim:

• Open file A
• Choose File → Divide Diff With ... And Select File B
• Choose File → Split Diff with ... and select the C file

and etc.

Answer 2

Although it is lame, here is what I returned as a quick and dirty solution:

I set the variable with the number to the string that I want to compare:

set number=10 

I wrote the following batch file and installed the GNU utilities:

 head -n %number% approval.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo approval.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% checkout.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo checkout.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% confirmation.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo confirmation.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% edit_imprint.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo edit_imprint.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% history.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo history.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% home.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo home.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% imprint.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo imprint.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% mixed.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo mixed.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% office.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo office.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% payment.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo payment.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% report_cat.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo report_cat.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% review.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo review.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% settings.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo settings.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% shopping_cart.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo shopping_cart.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% stock.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo stock.htm >> compare%number%.file head -n %number% warehouse.htm | tail -n 1 >> compare%number%.file echo warehouse.htm >> compare%number%.file 

And the resulting file compare10.file has all the comparisons in it for viewing vertically. He is lame, but he works.