13298 Is there any way to find identical contents, ignoring names

[chrisjj]

How may I get BC to find files of identical content regardless of name and path?

The answer I saw here to this some time ago for another use was "Not possible", since there have been BC improvements since then, I thought is worth asking again since this would most useful to me.

Thanks.

(My current workaround is: Ignore folder structure, sort by size, manually compare each pairing of files within each group of equal size.)

[Aaron]

Hi Chris,

Aligning based on content is on our Customer Wishlist, but is not something we support in the current version of BC3.

As is, you must align based on file name or use an Alignment Override (name rule) to align your files before comparing the content.

[chrisjj]

Thanks.

> you must align based on file name or use an Alignment Override (name rule)
> to align your files before comparing the content.

How can I get that to align pairs of filenames differing only in accents?

[Aaron]

Under normal circumstances, file names with accents are considered different characters. You could define Alignment Overrides for each accent replacement, but there isn't an easy way to do this as a general case.

You'll also want to be careful to avoid the bug you found with Windows handling accented characters on FAT32, as mentioned here:
http://www.scootersoftware.com/vbull...ead.php?t=7543

Aligning based on content and "Touching" filenames are both on our Customer Wishlist.

[Michael Bulgrien]

For example

Align left file: (.*)ó(.*)
With right file: $1o$2

Of course, you would need to add replacement rules for every combination of accented characters you have in your folder structure.

@Scooter - This is another example of an area where exporting specific configurations to a bcpkg file would be nice. It would be nice to be able to export and import an entire set of replacement rules using a bcpkg without impacting any other product configurations.

[chrisjj]

For example

Align left file: (.*)ó(.*)
With right file: $1o$2

Of course, you would need to add replacement rules for every combination of accented characters you have in your folder structure.

Please explain what you mean by "combination". E.g. to cover áéíóú v. aeiou.

@Scooter - This is another example of an area where exporting specific configurations to a bcpkg file would be nice.

Please first can we have simply copy and paste on the list of overrides.

[chrisjj]

You could define Alignment Overrides for each accent replacement

Could you give an example please? Michael's works only for a single occurence of the given character.

[Aaron]

Hello Chris,

My entire quote is:
"You could define Alignment Overrides for each accent replacement, but there isn't an easy way to do this as a general case."

I'm just listing the different ways Beyond Compare 3 currently supports aligning files in case other users stumble across this forum post for reference. I do not think Alignment Overrides meets your needs as a general case; the best we can offer is for you to create specific rules as you need them.

[Aaron]

Added your notes on both copying replacements and exporting/importing to our Customer Wishlist.

[chrisjj]

My entire quote is:
"You could define Alignment Overrides for each accent replacement, but there isn't an easy way to do this as a general case."

I don't require an easy way. Even a difficult way is going to be a big improvement on doing it by manual align pairs, so again, I'd like an example, please.

[Aaron]

Michael's example is specific:
Align left file: (.*)ó(.*)
With right file: $1o$2

You could expand it by adding more characters, such as
Align left file: (.*)ó(.*)é(.*)
With right file: $1o$2e$3
and
Align left file: (.*)é(.*)ó(.*)
With right file: $1e$2o$3

[chrisjj]

Align left file: (.*)ó(.*)é(.*)

Thanks, I already saw Michael's specific "(.*)ó(.*)" and your "(.*)ó(.*)é(.*)" is more specific.

Do you have an example of a general-case solution?

[Aaron]

Hello Chris,

Sorry, I saw your originally posted question. I must have been answering as you were editing. You had originally asked:
"Still I'd like an example, even specific. Guessing through the still-undocumented AO regexp format is not getting me very far."

So, yes, the example I gave is a more specific example to cover 2 characters instead of 1.

Do you have an example of a general-case solution?

Unfortunately, no. As I mentioned before: "I'm just listing the different ways Beyond Compare 3 currently supports aligning files in case other users stumble across this forum post for reference. I do not think Alignment Overrides meets your needs as a general case; the best we can offer is for you to create specific rules as you need them."

[chrisjj]

> Unfortunately, no.

OK thanks.

Note that for every e.g. "(.*)ó(.*)é(.*)" one would need a transposed version. Hence even a hundred entries could cover only two occurrences of the five vowels.

[Michael Bulgrien]

If you have a folder structure that is important enough to align in this way, it really shouldn't be such a big effort:

Create a file filter that only displays files with accented vowels.
Create an alignment override for the top file in the list
Alter your file filter so that all files matching the new rule are hidden.

Repeat the last two steps until you have no more accented vowel patterns to create overrides for. Save a copy of your final file filter so that you can check for new patterns that need overrides the next time you have a need to compare your folder structures.