Text Diff Tab

Opened from:
- Object list tab
- Find tab
- Data diff tab
- Table structure diff tab
- View definition diff tab
Applicable tab-specific toolbar actions:
- Show all, new and changed, new, changed lines
- Include new on the left, new on the right, changed, unchanged lines
- Jump to the last, next, previous, first change
- Merge selected text from the left to the right side, and from the right to the left. If no text selected, applied to the whole line under the cursor.
- Copy selection to clipboard
Applicable object types: all

This tab allows to compare text definition of some particular database programming object (like view or stored procedure) or text column value:

Vertical toolbar between two panels contains additional tab-specific actions:

Open Data diff for the current table/view
Open Data diff for the current table/view filtered only to new and changed records
Open Table structure diff tab for the current table, applicable only for tables
Open View definition diff tab for the current view, applicable only for views
Ignore case
Ignore leading and trailing whitespaces
Ignore all whitespaces
Ignore empty lines
Show tab and space characters
Show line numbers
Word wrap
Refresh diff (Ctrl+R), available only for editable object types (modules and form/report module-only view), active only if left or right panel is in the edit state

The state of Show tab and space characters and Show line number toggles is common for the Text diff tab and other tabs having bottom text preview (Object list, etc.).

Main text area highlights new and changed lines (whole line highlighted), bottom panel shows selected line with per-character changes highlighted. Top panel shows text changes summary: total number of rows, new, changed, new+changed and unchanged line counts. Note that when you change text comparison options like ignore case or white spaces - changes highlight and new/changed totals can be changed because of different text comparison rules.

You can filter text lines to show only new, changed or new+changed lines. In this case most of the unchanged lines are collapsed and can be shown/hidden using the +/- buttons to the left of the text area. Number of unchanged lines shown by default is configured in ADD.LINES field in the right-top corner.

Word wrap details and limitations

When Word wrap is enabled, horizontal scrolling is disabled, as it is no longer needed in this mode. To maintain visual alignment of wrapped lines between the two sides of the diff, the opposite line may be padded with a number of non-breaking space (NBSP) characters. These characters are not shown in Show tab and space characters mode, but will be present when selecting and copying text. In rare cases, word wrapping may cause the number of visual lines to differ between the two sides of the diff. If this disrupts readability, it is recommended to disable Word wrap for such texts.

Editing

For editable object (table data value and most of the object types except table definitions, schemas and foreign keys) each text changes summary panel contains buttons to manage the edit state:

Edit - enter in the Edit mode
Save edit changes to the database, opens Execute script dialog that will contain SQL script with desired action.
Cancel edit changes and reset text like it was before any edits, additional confirmation dialog shown.

Last updated: 2026-05-06