Directory agnostic diff

[Guest]

I'm hoping that this is possible with the current version via creative scripting but I don't think so.

What I'd like is to be able to compare two sets of files without caring what directory they are located in. Essentially, the directory would become just another optional comparison criteria. Currently, it appears that it needs to match (i.e. matching files must be in a directory of the same name) but I would like to be able to switch this off and a match could occur between files from any two sub-directories.

Then BC can be used to do set-like operations such as: union: all files (less duplicates); intersection: only duplicates; or - more usefully for backup purposes - symmetric difference: all files in set 1 not already in set 2 (S1 \ S2).

I've been searching for a utility with this ability in order to deal with the migration of files across folders and systems and generations of users. It would allow me to get the files I care about (the unique ones) without copying everything to a single directory or iterating over every directory.

Any chance that this could be done with the current version?

[Chris]

Re: Directory agnostic diff

It isn't possible to compare while ignoring folder structure in the current version of BC.

This is a feature we plan to add in a future version of BC, but we don't have a release date at this point.

If the set of files isn't very large, you can use the copyto feature to flatten a folder structure and then compare the copied files.

Use the command: copyto lt path:none destinationpath

If you just need a tool to find duplicate files, you might want to look at the utility Spaceman99. I've used it a few times and it seems to work well for duplicate searching.

http://www.extrabit.com/spaceman99/

[Guest]

Re: Directory agnostic diff

Hi,

I was looking for a program to manage my digital pictures. I transfer them from my SD memory card to my desktop but don't always have time to sort them into the proper folders and sometimes they get copied into multiple folders when I make up slide shows for friends. I was hoping your program would help determine where I had duplicates and remove them. I wanted to be able to set the left window to the base folder of SD files (or a temporary folder) and have the right window show where I had duplicate files.

I found BC very good for managing backup files as long as you are comparing the base folder in both windows or subdirectories if the directory names are the same in both windows. It didn't work if the subdirectory names are different. (Maybe this should be mentioned in the documentation because it wasn't apparent until I started reading the posts on this forum and playing with the program.)

The suggestion of using Spaceman99 was a good one. It's very good at finding folders containing duplicate files. I used it in combination with BC to find and prune my extra files. I plan to purchase both programs and add them to my toolbox.

Thanks,
Tom

[Guest]

Re: Directory agnostic diff

To manage your photos try Picasa2 at http://www.picasa.com/download/index.php

[Guest]

Re: Directory agnostic diff

You might check into this http://sourceforge.net/projects/duplifinder/ its free, open sourced, and a good alternative until beyondcompare adds this feature.

[Guest]

Re: Directory agnostic diff

I was just wondering if the directory agnostic diff ever made it into a version of BC.

[pauljud]

Re: Directory agnostic diff

I decided I needed to clarify what I was looking for.

I have one directory with a large number of files that get copied across many other directories during the course of a project. I would like to be able to compare the files in the original directory to those in the other directories to find the ones that change.

Paul

[Chris]

Re: Directory agnostic diff

This isn't something the current version of Beyond Compare is capable of, but it is still on our todo list to include in a future release.