Compare .zip file on S3 to original folder locally

[machete]

Hello,

I've been using BC for a long time local file comparisons and some limited scripting with FTP...however I'm looking to try something new and wondering if it's capable.

I have 90K+ media files currently stored on Amazon S3. I'd like to zip those files to reduce objects, etc in S3 but leave them uncompressed locally. Can BC then compare the original files (stored locally) to the zipped files (stored on S3) for changes?

Or does BC only compare .zip -> .zip?

Due to the cost of API calls with S3 - I'm trying to reduce the amount of objects that I scan for changes when doing a file compare and thinking that the compressed version may be the way to go.

Thanks for any help!

[Chris]

You can set a .zip file as a base folder in Beyond Compare and compare it to a normal folder, it's not just zip to zip. Load Amazon S3 on one side, then right click on the .zip file and select Set As Base Folder.

[machete]

Thanks Chris!

Do you know how loading that .zip is considered to S3? Is that a single get request, does it download it locally? I'm trying to manage the amount of requests Beyond Compare puts into S3. My simple mind tells me, 1 zip is less than 50-60 files...

[Aaron]

Hello,

As an individual archive, it would be an individual transfer if you are dealing with the parent archive as the selected item. Making edits would require bundling up and re-transferring the zip, so this could be expensive if you frequently issue saves on edits. You could copy the zip locally first, perform all edits needed against the temp copy, then reupload and verify the upload with BC4.

[machete]

Thanks Aaron - so to just compare contents - does it physically download the entire archive? If I made a 1GB archive - would it download it first before comparing? Just not familiar enough with how BC4 accesses archives like we're discussing.

Thanks for all your help and input!

[Chris]

When working with archive files on Amazon S3, Beyond Compare downloads the zip to your local temp folder (%TMP% on Windows) to perform comparison.