Base folder
The top-most folder on either side of a folder view. Base folder names appear in the toolbar path edits above each pane of the comparison.
Child Session
A file session launched from a folder session.
Conflict
In a 3-way merge, a conflict occurs when the same section of text has changes on both left and right sides.
CRC
CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) is a numeric representation of the contents of a file. If the CRCs of two files are different, then the contents of those files must be different. If the CRCs match, then it is quite likely that the contents match.
CSV
CSV (Comma Separated Values) is a common file layout for representing row and column data.
File Format
Our term for the collection of settings that characterize a type of file. For example, the Java Source file format describes the Java grammar for syntax highlighting and rules-based comparisons, and stores your tab stop preference for Java source. File formats can also specify conversion routines to be run before and after comparisons.
Filter
A setting that limits what is displayed or processed, "filtering out" unneeded content.
Important text
Text that is important to the comparison.
Line ending style
The pattern of control characters that define the end of each line in a text file. Typically, it is CR+LF in Windows/DOS, LF only in Unix, and CR only in Macintosh.
Orphan
Our term for an item that is on one side and not the other in a comparison.
Plug-in
Software accessory that can be "plugged into" the program for more features.
Profile
A named collection of settings and credentials for remote services such as FTP, WebDAV, Dropbox and Subversion.
Regular Expressions
Formulas for matching strings that follow a pattern.
Rules
Our term for the session settings that control how a comparison is performed.
Section
A contiguous range of lines with differences.
Session
Our term for a comparison task, such as comparing folders or files. Each session view is in its own top-level window, or tab on a window.
Skew tolerance
The number of lines Beyond Compare will search forward and backward for a matching section.
Snapshot
A custom Beyond Compare file that contains folder tree information. Like a camera capturing reality at a moment in time, a snapshot file captures the state of a folder so that the user can compare it to the live folder at some later time, and find what has changed.
Thumbnail
In file comparison windows, the (optional) panel on the left with the color-coded summary of differences.
Timestamp
A timestamp is a file or folder's last modified time.
Tolerance
In Table Compare and Picture Compare, the amount that two cells (or pixels) can differ before being considered an important difference. Differences less than or equal to the tolerance are unimportant differences.
Touch/Touching
The action of setting the timestamp of a file to a specific value.
Unimportant differences
Differences in text that are defined to be unimportant to the comparison. They may include whitespace or character case differences, comments or line numbers.
View
An open session (or the Home view) as it appears as a window or on a tab.
Whitespace
The blank space at the beginning and end of lines and between words. Whitespace is generally made up of any combination of the "space" and "tab" characters.
Workspace
The collection of all open sessions, including the size and position of windows and tabs.