Compare two snapshots to view changes
To view the differences between two model snapshots any text or JSON diffing tool can be used. However, keep in mind
that the snapshot files can be quite big and that some tools might not be able to cope with that.
One tool that works quite well is Meld. Meld is free to use and available for Windows, Linux and MacOS.
Steps to compare two files using Meld:
Get Meld from https://meldmerge.org
Open Meld and press the button File comparison
Don’t select the snapshot files yet (leave the file selection fields empty with the placeholder “(None)”)
and press Compare.
Hint
The reason for leaving the file selection fields empty is that Meld isn’t able to detect the encoding correctly
if the files are selected already here.
Select the old and the new snapshot file at the top of the two columns. Note that it can take two minutes or so to
load the files in Meld (loading state indicated by loading icon in the top right corner).
Once both files are loaded, the differences are highlighted and can be spotted easily. Use the arrow buttons to
navigate between the differences.