Question regarding patches/updates and mods...

[Taqwus]

Context-sensitive diffs might work well, given how much of the data is ASCII text...

I'd be really, really, surprised if 'patch' and 'diff' have not been ported to DOS/Windows given their usefulness. And they'd be quite useful for mods (e.g. Tcl/Tk or VB or what-have-you front-end used for selecting between standard game and mods; if a mod is selected, the front-end applies the relevant patches, and then reverses the patches after SE4 exits. Probably would need an option to revert manually if the script gets aborted before the patch gets reversed, or what-not. But that'd be workable as long as Version changes don't induce incompatibilities like changing field semantics (adding mandatory fields, etc) or conflicts (same-name components, same-number component images, etc).

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night