#3602·winmerge

[BUG] Ecoding issues do not show up in the difference window

Author: myway880Created Sep 1, 2026Updated Sep 2, 2026
Labelsbug

Description

Files that deffer only in encoding e.g ANSI vs UTF-8 or have encoding errors are flagged correctly as different. but not why they are different, with no indication in the comparison window of encoding. the user may assume that the difference is windows vs linux end of line handling is what is causing the no visual difference, and could overwrite and change the encoding of files without realizing it,

In the case of python code for example this could mean silent crashing because of failed imports of files with encoding issues...

Steps to reproduce

No response

WinMerge version

2.16.56.2

Platform

Windows x64

Additional information

No response