Compare (and merge) two VS C# projects

Question

I have two VS C# projects (specifically, for an Outlook plugin) that I believe to be very similar with the exception of perhaps 100 lines of code. I'm slightly worried that there might be other configuration options for the project that are different, so I'd like to compare those two.

What is the best way to see the differences between the two codebases?

I've tried putting the two projects in parallel directories and using diff, but since the projects are named differently, some of the files don't match up. I'm just wondering if there's an easier way to do this?

Answer 1

It sounds like you need something like WinMerge to go through and point out the differences between the two projects. It's free, and I know you can compare folder contents with WinMerge, so that's probably a good place to start. Run WinMerge on the project folders and it should generate a detailed comparison outlining the differences between the files.

See this tutorial on comparing folders:
http://manual.winmerge.org/CompareDirs.html

Answer 2

I strongly recommend Code Compare (not affiliated, just a happy user) for this kind of job - there is a free version and a more advanced commercial version.

It integrates nicely with VS and has syntax highlighting for C#, C/C++ etc.