ediff problem

ediff problem

[Bill]

I use emacs 23.1 on a windows xp box. No matter what ediff method I
use (M-x ediff-buffers or the menu bar "Tools | Compare" etc) to
compare buffers (or files) I get the message "Searching for program:
no such file or directory, diff".

However in my ~/emacs-23.1/lisp/ directory there is a file called
diff.el along with diff-mode.el There is also ediff.el and 10 variants
such as ediff-hook.el

The emacs ediff manual says the required files are loaded upon need
but a (require 'diff) and (require 'ediff) in ~/.emacs can be used.
That made no difference for me.

Thanks in advance for any help. Bill

Re: ediff problem

[Scott Frazer]

On 8/26/10 1:33 PM, Antoine Tollenaere wrote:
>
> Hello Bill,
>
> Bill<bsagert@gmail.com>  writes:
>> I use emacs 23.1 on a windows xp box. No matter what ediff method I
>> use (M-x ediff-buffers or the menu bar "Tools | Compare" etc) to
>> compare buffers (or files) I get the message "Searching for program:
>> no such file or directory, diff".
>
> Ediff relies on 'diff', the Unix program to compare text files. Windows
> does not install such a program, but diff comes along with all Posix
> environment for Windows including Cygwin, Microsoft SFU and
> MKS. Installing one of them will solve your problem (Cygwin is the best
> choice in my opinion). You may have to add the bin directory (for
> instance c:\cygwin\bin) to you PATH environment variable and log you off
> and on again in order for Emacs to find it.
>
> Best regards,
> Antoine.

If you just want a couple Unix utilities like 'diff' and 'find' instead of
a big Unix-y environment, you can get them here:

http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/