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Filters — what counts as a difference

Not every difference is one that matters. A file that has been through a different tool often has different indentation, different line endings or one more space at the end of a line — in substance it is identical. The filter bar above the comparison decides what MergeQaiPro treats as a real difference and what passes as formatting only.

Screenshot 10: Filter bar with all switches — “Real differences only”, whitespace, indentation, trailing, case, line endings, blank lines, whitespace amount, syntax, invisibles and “Regex filter…” — Fig. 10 — Filter bar with all switches — “Real differences only”, whitespace, indentation, trailing, case, line endings, blank lines, whitespace amount, syntax, invisibles and “Regex filter…”

5.1 The master switch

Real differences only is the big lever: pure formatting differences (whitespace, line endings, capitalisation …) are treated as “equal” and hidden. What remains differs in substance — and that is usually exactly what you want to see.

5.2 The individual switches

Switch	Ignores
Whitespace	differences in whitespace — the number of spaces and tabs
Whitespace amount	only the amount: consecutive spaces/tabs count as one, line ends are trimmed
Indentation	leading whitespace at the start of a line
Trailing	trailing whitespace at the end of a line
Case	upper and lower case
Line endings	CRLF, LF and CR count as the same
Blank lines	lines that are entirely empty
Regex filter…	everything matching your own patterns (chapter 6)

Two further switches change nothing about the comparison, only about the display: Syntax colours the source code, Invisibles reveals spaces, tabs and line endings (see 3.4).

💡 Start coarse, then refine

Switch on Real differences only and look at what remains. If the list is still full of trivia — timestamps, sequence numbers, changing paths — the regex filter in the next chapter is the tool for that.