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gitk external diff on Windows

Subject: gitk external diff on Windows

## tl;dr

3 messages between Mar 2, 2022 and Mar 4, 2022.

replies: 2people: 2as markdown or json

Phillip Susi· Mar 2, 2022, 16:27 UTC · lore

I'm running git version 2.28.0.windows.1 on Windows and trying to set it up to run winmerge as the external diff tool. I am pretty sure I used to do this following the instructions here:

https://igorsgames.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/using-winmerge-as-an-external-diff-tool-in-gitk/

When I point gitk to the batch file and try to open the external diff tool, nothing happens. Winmerge does not open, nor do I get an error from gitk. I noticed the next box below on the preferences screen contains "cmd /c" so I tried prefixing the path to the batch file with that, and instead I get an error that says:

cmd /c C:/Program Files/WinMerge/winmerge.bat: command failed: couldn't execute "cmd \c C:\Program Files\WinMerge\winmerge.bat": no such file or directory.

Why does nothing happen in the first case, and why in the second case is gitk apparently changing regular slashes into back-slashes before trying to pass the string directly to CreateProcess as the name of the executable binary, rather than to a shell or ShellExecute or something?

Also I just tried having the batch file echo something to a text file to see if it was running at all or if winmerge just isn't opening, and the text file ( full path to my home directory to make sure permissions aren't a problem ) isn't created, so the batch file isn't executing even though there is no error given by gitk.

Erik Cervin Edin· Mar 4, 2022, 08:37 UTC · re: Phillip Susi · lore

Re: gitk external diff on Windows

On Wed, Mar 2, 2022 at 11:32 PM Phillip Susi <phill@thesusis.net> wrote:
>
> I'm running git version 2.28.0.windows.1 on Windows and trying to set it
> up to run winmerge as the external diff tool.

This is really a Git for Windows specific issue and more appropriately asked here https://groups.google.com/g/git-for-windows

But I'll give a quick response here.
Show 6 quoted lines
> contains "cmd /c" so I tried prefixing the path to the batch file with
> that, and instead I get an error that says:
>
> cmd /c C:/Program Files/WinMerge/winmerge.bat: command failed: couldn't
> execute "cmd \c C:\Program Files\WinMerge\winmerge.bat": no such file or
> directory.

I'm guessing you're running this from git bash, in which case try cmd //c C:/Program Files/WinMerge/winmerge.bat See https://stackoverflow.com/a/21907301

Basically a song and dance has to be done to work with Windows quirks.

If you're still having issues, it's best to follow up in the Git for Windows discussion group https://groups.google.com/g/git-for-windows

Phillip Susi· Mar 4, 2022, 20:50 UTC · re: Erik Cervin Edin · lore

Re: gitk external diff on Windows

Erik Cervin Edin <erik@cervined.in> writes:
Show 10 quoted lines
> I'm guessing you're running this from git bash, in which case try
> cmd //c C:/Program Files/WinMerge/winmerge.bat
> See
> https://stackoverflow.com/a/21907301
>
> Basically a song and dance has to be done to work with Windows quirks.
>
> If you're still having issues, it's best to follow up in the Git for
> Windows discussion group
> https://groups.google.com/g/git-for-windows
Nope, that didn't help.  I guess I'll try there.

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