C12-09 Eclipse Compare

Software Profile

ID	C12-09
Product	Eclipse Compare
Company	The Eclipse Foundation
Web Site	http://www.eclipse.org
Software Type	Desktop
Costs	Free
Test Date	2012-03-22

Testoverview

Ranking for all tests:	9
Ranking for Source Code Test:	12
Ranking for Text Test:	8
Summary:	not useful

Summary

This program can compare up to three files that are uploaded in an Eclipse project with each other. This means that it can only deal with files that have endings that Eclipse can import. Neither .doc, .pdf, nor .rdf files can be uploaded. Newlines are ignored, umlauts and special characters are not displayed properly

The program is geared towards Java, but is unable to interpret program code correctly. Instead, it just produces a textual comparison. This explains the very low score of 8/63 points. A side-by-side comparison can only be viewed in Eclipse and cannot be printed from there. There are two options, Java Source Compare and Text Compare, but they both produce the same results. It does, however, mark first the lines with differences and then the individual words that have been changed.

In summary, this tool is not useful for the detection of collusion at university.