Git Diff and Meld on Windows

Question

Has anyone ever made Meld work with Git on Windows? I am trying to make it work and I have no success.

I have Meld installed and when I call it from the command line with two files as parameters it diffs them well so Meld is installed correctly. However I can't make it work with Git (Git Diff). I use version git version 1.8.1.msysgit.1 of Git.

I have tried several things: I created a shell script, meld.sh:

#!/bin/bash
meld.exe "$2" "$5"
echo $2
echo $5

and used it from Git:

[diff]
    tool = meld

[difftool "meld"]
    cmd = \"D:\\meld.sh\"

I tried to add it as a difftool like this:

[diff]
    tool = meld

[difftool "meld"]
    cmd = \"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Meld\\meld\\meld.exe\" 

or like this:

[diff]
    tool = meld

[difftool "meld"]
    cmd = '\"/c/Program Files (x86)/Meld/meld/meld.exe\" $PWD/$LOCAL $PWD/$BASE $PWD/$REMOTE --output=$PWD/$MERGED'

But it really does not seem to work. I also tried to echo the second($2) and fifth($5) parameter from my shell script and no output. I also tried using a batch script in several ways:

meld.exe %2 %5

or

meld.exe %~2 %~5

But it really does not work... How can I pass the two versions of the file Git uses when diffing to Meld? It's pretty annoying...

Island

Answer 1

Usually, you can find an example on Windows similar to this gist, with meld.exe being in your PATH):

git config --global merge.tool meld
git config --global mergetool.meld.cmd 'meld.exe \"$BASE\" \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\" \"$MERGED\"'

git config --global diff.tool meld
git config --global difftool.meld.cmd 'meld.exe \"$LOCAL\" \"$REMOTE\"'

You can find more robust settings in "Git mergetool with Meld on Windows", but the idea remains the same.

---

The OP reports in the comments:

For the difftool, your commands write the following configurations in .gitconfig:

[diff]
  tool = meld
[difftool "meld"]
  cmd = meld.exe \\\"$LOCAL\\\" \\\"$REMOTE\\\"

I changed them to:

[diff]
  tool = meld
[difftool "meld"]
  cmd = meld.exe $LOCAL $REMOTE

and everything worked fine.

Hissing

I tried your method but it does not work properly. Here how it looks like: i.imgur.com/KIaVb04.png. If you have any issues in understanding the paths please let me know, I hid the user name and part of the file name. – Island

Managed to make the difftool work. Haven't tried the mergetool but chanses are that they will work the same. For the difftool your commands write the following configurations in .gitconfig: [diff] tool = meld [difftool "meld"] cmd = meld.exe \\\"$LOCAL\\\" \\\"$REMOTE\\\" I changed them to: [diff] tool = meld [difftool "meld"] cmd = meld.exe $LOCAL $REMOTE and everything worked fine. I will try with mergetool later but I will accept your comment :) Thanks! – Island

@JasonSwartz great. I have included your comment in the answer for more visibility. – Hissing

I tried meld as a mergetool and i used the same parameters for meld as for the difftool: cmd = meld.exe $LOCAL $REMOTE and worked wonderful. Otherwise it crashed probably because of the parameters. Thanks, again! – Island

removing the quotes on the $LOCAL and $REMOTE was absolutely key for me. must be like cmd = meld.exe $LOCAL $REMOTE – Aholla

" [diff] tool = meld [difftool "meld"] cmd = \"D:\\software\\melddiff\\Meld.exe\" $LOCAL $REMOT ". Mine is like this on win7 and I got an error: /usr/libexec/git-core/git-mergetool--lib:行124: D:\software\melddiff\Meld.exe: can't find the command" – Flummox

@AllenVork Strange. Could you ask a separate question, with the exact version of Git and Meld? I suppose you do have the file D:\software\melddiff\Meld.exe? – Hissing

I solved it. I change it to "D:/software/melddiff/Meld.exe" and it works.The .gitconfig's format is ubuntu not windows. – Flummox

Answer 2

Or even better, if you're on a locked-down system where fooling with the path is not allowed or you just don't want to pollute your path space, you can just put in the full path to Meld.

I also prefer my current working code copy to show up on the left, so I swapped the $REMOTE and $LOCAL arguments. Also mind the conversions of \ to / and don't for get to escape the double quotes.

[diff]
    tool = meld
[difftool "meld"]
    cmd = \"C:/Program Files (x86)/Meld/meld/meld.exe\" $REMOTE $LOCAL

Convergent

Answer 3

For Windows 7 (or even other versions of windows), add these lines in the .gitconfig file.

[diff]
    tool = meld
[merge]
    tool = meld
[difftool "meld"]
    path = C:/Program Files (x86)/Meld/meld.exe
[mergetool "meld"]
    path = C:/Program Files (x86)/Meld/meld.exe

Note that there is no need to use " for the path even if it includes spaces. Just remember to use forward slashes instead of backward slashes.

Selfmade

It works in Windows Server 2012 R2 out of the box. Easiest solution found. – Mackmackay

Doesn't work on Windows 10 with latest versions of GIt and Meld. – Topsyturvydom

Clean solution for both diff and merge, thanks! Minor comment, based on my experience and on all other answers posted here: the default path to Meld rather seems to be C:/Program Files (x86)/Meld/meld.exe. I'll propose an edit in the answer – Anh

For meld version 3.20.3, the default installation path is C:/Users/UserName/AppData/Local/Programs/Meld/Meld.exe, so the path should be path = C:/Users/UserName/AppData/Local/Programs/Meld/Meld.exe – Overfeed

Answer 4

I tried several variations of trying to set the path with git config to no avail. Since I want to use Meld from the Git Bash console window, what did work was to export the path to the Meld directory, restart the Bash shell and lo & behold git difftool --tool-help and git mergetool --tool-help now recognize Meld, and I can choose it as my preferred tool.

.profile

export PATH=/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Meld/:$PATH

.gitconfig

[merge]
    tool = meld
[diff]
    tool = meld

Balakirev

Answer 5

Another tip for users invoking diff from gitk (by right-clicking the context menu item "External Diff"):

The above settings may get overridden by gitk's preferences. In that case, change the tools in gitk's menu Edit → Preferences → General → External diff setting.

Kerwon