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Is it possible to compare two versions of a compiled ASP.NET application (V2, Webforms). When I say compiled I mean all the code is in separate Webform and Codebehind DLLs in the "bin" folder ie the "Use fixed naming and single page assemblies" publish option in VS.

Currently I used "Beyond Compare" to compare "Source" and it does an excellent job of this especially as one can compare 2 folders and it will go away and compare all the child folders and files. Unfortunately I have not found a way to compare a "compiled"/"published" application with it.

Thoughts?

Many thanks.

Crab Bucket
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EdB
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  • Does Beyond Compare offer any ability to compare binary files? Do you use Reflector? If so, [let me point you here](http://stackoverflow.com/a/590869/74757) for now (it has a Diff tool plugin), or you can use it to export the disassembled code from each copy of your app, then you could use Beyond Compare to compare the output. – Cᴏʀʏ Apr 23 '12 at 15:23

2 Answers2

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If you're trying to find a way to compare the DLLs, take a look at the Reflector Diff AddIn.

This article offers a few other options as well.

James Johnson
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  • Looks interesting, but it seems to be a file by file diff tool. My application contains many files and I was rather hoping for a folder based tool that could scan all of them. Perhaps it can behave like this ???? Thanks for your help. – EdB Apr 23 '12 at 15:45
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You can compare binary files from Beyond Compare. Just do a folder compare and when you have your folders selected, select the files you want to compare and hit the Compare Contents button button to display the dialog below:

Compare Contents

When you hit start, it will compare each file and tell you if they are the same or not. File that have this icon between them icon are not the same as each other.

Robbie
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