File comparison not working between local and remote FTP

[CaseyK]

Hi,

I've just downloaded BeyondCompare3 with the intention to keep files on my local HDD (Win/Vista) in sync with a remote server (MediaTemple/Linux).

I created a "Folder Sync" session with "local" on the left and "remote" on the right, with the option "Mirror to Right" selected. The files were successfully copied to my FTP server without issue.

Next I created a "Folder Compare" session, again with local on the left and remote on the right, and attempted to compare the files with the expectation that they would have no difference.

For reasons beyond my understanding, the majority of the files copied are marked as "different" even though they should be the same. I assume there is a discrepancy between the file sizes and timestamps because of the two different file systems on which they are stored, but is this something Beyond Compare is not able to identify and handle appropriately? To add to my confusion, some files are marked with no difference (see below).

When I attempt to manually sync files to the remote server, I'm told that the file on the server is newer by 1 milisecond and a few bytes (see below). I'm assuming this is why Beyond Compare thinks they are different.

Here's what I'm seeing:



Thanks in advance for your help,

Casey

[Michael Bulgrien]

I assume there is a discrepancy between the file sizes and timestamps because of the two different file systems on which they are stored, but is this something Beyond Compare is not able to identify and handle appropriately?

Hi Casey,

If you suspect that the different file systems are affecting file size but content is the same:

• Select all files
• Right-click and Compare Contents...
• Choose a Rules-based comparison

This should identify files that have the same contents

[CaseyK]

Hey Michael,

Thanks for your help, your suggestion worked like a charm. I think I tried this option once, but did not do a full refresh (I later learned that command), and so it looked like nothing happened when I selected it.

I'm a savvy-enough dude, but "Rules-based comparison" doesn't mean anything to me. Perhaps a description next to each option (CRC, Binary, Rules-based) would have eased my frustration.

2c!

Thanks again,

Casey

[Michael Bulgrien]

CRC: Cyclic Redundancy Check

(A checksum is calculated for the file, if both sides have the same checksum, the files are exactly identical. The whole file must be read to calculate a checksum.)

Binary: Compares the files byte by byte. Since a binary compare stops on the first mismatch, a binary compare will usually be faster than a checksum if you have a lot of files with differences.

Rules-Based: Does not require files to by physically the same, but does check to see if the content is the same based on the compare rules specified for that file format. For example, open a text file in note pad. Save four copies, one as ANSI, one as Unicode, one as Unicode big endian, one as UTF-8.

Both a CRC and a Binary compare will show the files to be different. If you view any two of the files in a Hex Compare session, you will see the physical differences between each encoding method.

If you view any two of the files in a Text Compare session, however, they will show as the same because they have the same content. The content is compared using the comparison rules for text files (which ignores the encoding that was used when the files were saved).

[CaseyK]

Got it, thanks!