External Tools problem -- not executing all programs?

[HMan007]

It appears external tools does not execute all programs (or at least does
not show output).

For instance I have a batch file on Windows XP that I have tried to do a:

fc <file1> <file2>

or

comp <file1> <file2>

neither shows any output.

I thought at first it might be built in DOS commands that don't work,
but I put a

dir <file>

in a batch file & that worked.


Is there a way around this?

or

Could I download another "diff" type program that will work? Ideally,
it could print just 1 line --files are same or different. This is because
I plan to use as an automated tester -- compile, run & compare output
to ensure I don't break anything.

Or could you somehow use the textPad Compare Files in an automated tester?

From search of the forums, I found something similar --
It mentioned xcopy failure:

http://forums.textpad.com/viewtopic.php ... ht=execute


Thanks for any help!