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Text File | 1993-05-25 | 14.8 KB | 370 lines

ZDIFF v1.2 The Archive/Directory comparator Shareware program Copyright 1993, Christophe Dubourg Date : 1993, May 25 ---*--- Table of contents 1 ........................Purpose 2 ........................ Syntax 3 ...................... Features 4 .................. How it works 5 ........................ Limits 6 ....................... Remarks 7 .................... Disclaimer 8 ..... How to contact the author ---*--- 1. Purpose : ------------ ZDiff is a comparison utility program. You can compare a pair of archives, or a pair of directories, or an archive and a directory. (that's the new of this !) You obtain a sorted list of all the files, along with a status line, showing the differences, if any. 2. Syntax : ----------- ZDIFF <New Archive/Directory> <Old Archive/Directory> or ZDIFF <New Archive/Directory> <Old Archive/Directory> [options] [wildcards] Note : To simplify the following, the archive or directory that is compared to an other archive or directory will be called a Set of files. There is a NEW set of files, and an OLD set of files. (to determine the one that is Newer and the one that is Older, for instance). The <New archive/directory> and <Old archive/directory> parameters are needed (not optional). The order in which you specify the New/Old pair is relevant. It will make the difference between a 'Deleted' file or 'Inserted' file, or a 'Newer' and 'Older', or 'Bigger' and 'Smaller'. (In fact, it will determine the output result) The NEW set of files must be specified first. --------------------------------------------- Then, you may specify options and/or wildcards. a. Wildcards The wildcards may be used to restrict the files compared inside the directory or archive. (for both the new and old sets, because it would be unlogical to have two different wildcards). The DOS standard wildcards are allowed. b. Options The options may be specified anywhere on the command line, and are not case sensitive. The options are : /c : Country flag override. If the dates in the ZIP files are not well recognized, you may use this option to force the date format to use while reading ZIP files : /C0 - USA date format. (MM/DD/YY) /C1 - Swapped date format. (DD/MM/YY) /d : Differences only. Once the two sets of files are compared, the output will only show the files that have ANY difference in the 2 sets. By default, all the files of the two sets are displayed. /h : Help ! This display more help screens, and a copyright screen. /p : Pause With this option, ZDiff will prompt you before reading each set of file. The purpose of this is essentially while using floppies. For example, if you need to compare two sets that are on two different floppies that have the same format, you'll have to insert one disk, read the files from it, and then the second disk. Maybe, you could compare 2 removable hard disks, or a hard disk and an archive, or whatever. /q : Quick scan If a directory is involved in comparison, this permits to skip the CRC calculation on each file of this directory, in order to speed up the process. Of course, use this option with caution, since the comparison is made only with TimeStamp and Size ! (two files can have the same date and time of last modification, same size, and be binary different : in this case, they will be marked as 'Same'). /r : Recurse directories. By default, the subdirectories are not searched, either in the archive or the directory file structure. (to save time). This switch allows the comparison of the full tree of directories. Note : if you don't specify the -r option, the filenames that contains a path in the archives are not treated at all. /v : Verbose output This options causes a status to be output at the end of comparison. This report shows the number of files that are : - Identical - Different - Newer - Older - Bigger - Smaller - Inserted - Deleted It may give an idea of the amount of differences between the two sets, without having to analyze the whole output. 3. Features : ------------- Since this is a comparison program, you will probably want to know how it compares the two sets of files : The keys of comparison are : Name : If two names of the sets don't match, either one is new or one is deleted, depending on the order you specified for the comparison. if the -r option is specified, the full filename must match. Once two files are found in both the 2 sets, a more precise comparison occurs. The keys for comparison between two files that have the same name are : CRC : A CRC 32 bits calculation is made on the files to know if they are absolutely identical or not. Note : if one of the files is an archive of type LZH, LHA, ARC or ZOO, then a 16 bits calculation is done instead, to match the CRC that these archives use. If the Quick option is set, no CRC calculation occurs, and files are assumed binary identical. Date : To know which one is the oldest, or the newest. Size : To know which one is the biggest, or the smallest. 4. How it works --------------- To compare two directories, you won't need nothing but ZDIFF.EXE. But to compare two archives, or an archive and a directory, you'll need the correct unarchiver in your PATH, to access the archives you have specified. The program supports all the current archive formats that are commonly used and that I am aware of : ZIP, ARJ, LHA, LZH, PAK, ZOO, ARC. The needed unarchiver, for each extension is : *.ZIP PKUNZIP.EXE (v1.10 or v2.04) *.ARJ ARJ.EXE (v2.30) *.LHA \ *.LZH - LHA.EXE (v2.12) *.PAK / *.ZOO ZOO.EXE (v2.1) *.ARC PKUNPAK.EXE (v3.61) (each of these can be easily found on many BBS) Now, here how it works : The program first checks if the archive or directory that you specified exists. (to prevent an error after some precious seconds of calculation). At this points, it decides if a 32 bit or 16 bit calculation will occur (or no crc, if Quick mode is set). Then, it analyze the NEW set, and then the OLD set. Two choices, concerning each set of file : a. If it's an archive: The unarchiver is called, to obtain a list of each file in the archive, along with the date, crc, size, and so on. This list is saved in a temporary file. (Using the TEMP environment variable) Then, the temporary file is opened, and scanned for each file in it. Since all the informations are already calculated by the unarchiver, there's nothing to compute (the crc is already there). If this is NEW files, each file name is stored in memory, along with all the informations needed to compare later. If this is OLD files, a search is made in memory, to see if the file already exists in the NEW directory. If yes, the comparison occurs, and the status is updated accordingly. If not, the file information is simply stored. b. If it's a directory: The directory is scanned, and all the files are opened, to obtain the date, time, size, and a CRC calculation occurs. (except if the Quick mode is set). Each file entry is then treated like the archive file entry : if NEW, then the information is just stored. If OLD, the file is searched in memory, and then either added or updated in the list. After all the files have been read (the NEW set and the OLD set of files), the sorted list is sent to standard output. Since you can redirect standard output, you could use this facility to pipe the output to a filter program (FIND), or a viewer program (LIST), or any filter program of your choice. Here are some examples : 1. ZDIFF NEWARC.ZIP OLDARC.ARJ | LIST /S This display the output via the LIST viewer program. (if the archive contains sub-dirs, they are not included, since no -r parameter is there). 2. ZDIFF /r NEWARC.ZIP OLDDIR *.DOC | FIND "Newer" | LIST /s This display, via list, all the NEW files in NEWARC.ZIP, compared to OLDDIR directory and all its sub-dirs. Only the .DOC files are processed. 3. ZDIFF NEWZIP.ZIP . -r -q -c1 This output on screen the differences between the archive NEWZIP.ZIP and the current directories, and the subdirectories. A Quick scan of directories will be made (no CRC), so comparison will be made on date, time and size only. The date format used by PKUNZIP on this machine is the swapped date format (DD/MM/YY). 4. ZDIFF -v . -r OLDARC.LHA /d /q This output on screen the differences between the current directory and the archive OLDARC.LHA. Subdirs are scanned also. A Verbose (-v) status is displayed at end of comparison. Only the differences are shown (/d), and no CRC is calculated. 5. Limits : ----------- All the files informations are stored in DOS memory. (no EMS) It permits between 5500 to 9900 files to be stored, depending of the path length - this is much enough, I guess. Note concerning the archives : if the -r option is not specified, the files containing a path in their name are not included in the comparison. Only the files in the main directory of the archive are treated, and only the files in the specified directory are specified also. 6. Remarks ---------- I made my possible to make this program free of bugs, but if ever something is wrong with ZDIFF, tell me. I'll fix it ASAP. Note that I'm aware of no bug at this moment... Note that ZDiff supports international information from DOS, since PKUNZIP does. (it concerns the date format, used for time comparison, that is different in US than in France, for example). The KEYB country flag is used for this purpose, so you don't have to load the NLSFUNC program. If KEYB country flag is set, then I assume that DAY/MONTH information in ZIP files will be swapped. (compared to US). You can override (with the /C option) this state of thing, to set a date format to use on your machine. See the 'Syntax' section. 7. Disclaimer ------------- Even if there is really no possibility for this program to damage your data, here is the usual disclaimer message : As a shareware program, ZDIFF is distributed as-is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied. The author will assume no liability for damages either from the direct use of this product or as a consequence of it's use. PKUNZIP, PKUNPAK, ZIP, ARJ, ZOO, PAK, LZH, LHARC, LHA are copyrighted by their respective authors. 8. How to contact the author ---------------------------- If you like this program, and plan to use it, you may try it during a 21 days period, after what I would appreciate a donation from you. I develop many tools for my own use, (this one helps me a lot!) and I would like to share what I do with others. If users gives me money, it will be a proof that my tools are useful : in this case, I'll spend time to update them, and adding features. Of course, you can send what you want, but I would like to precise that when I want to have a Dollar check paid in my bank, it costs me $11 (I live in France). So, if you want to send money, please consider this, and send more than $11 ! ($20 would be good) An other option is sending cash notes in an enveloppe. If you can do that, please send about $10 or more. ** Thanks in advance. ** ------------------------------------------------- HERE IS MY ADDRESS Christophe Dubourg FOR MAIL, CHECKS, or 23, rue Victor Hugo CASH : 78370 PLAISIR FRANCE ------------------------------------------------- --> Even if you don't send money, please feel free to send me your remarks, suggestions, and specific problems encountered with this program. It will be a pleasure to read your mail and to answer it ! Don't hesitate to contact me, at the following addresses : --------------------------------------------------------------- Compuserve : 76476,550 MCI Mail : CDUBOURG (453-6013) or cdubourg@mcimail.com Internet : cdubourg@borland.com At home (paper Mail) : Christophe Dubourg 23, rue Victor Hugo 78370 PLAISIR FRANCE --------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using ZDiff, I hope it helps. //Christophe D.