First, I purchased BC3 some months ago for text compare tasks, and I'm very satisfied not only with these, but I also discovered BC's ability to compare folders, i.e. thousands of files, even on deeper levels than just those attributes (name, size, last changed, etc.) any file commander can "compare" files - this is very handy after doing savings of whole hdd's to another one, in order to be sure everything has been replicated without fault.
( Please allow for my touting of "Replicator", a fine freeware by the late Karen Kenworthy, perfect for any regular sync task, to be found on www.karenware.com )
Then, again, help file sometimes is not comprehensive enough for non-programmers. One problem I encounter is BC's inability (or mine, to discover how it works) to compare identical lines (i.e. NOT giving alarm then, instead of giving false alarms) that have been split in one of two reference files. Let me give an example:
I have downloaded some laws, from a governmental website. The articles there are plain-text, in the form
Article 314 blabla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla
bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla
bla bla.
In my downloads, I do some formatting, in the form
Article 314
bla bla bla bla........
bla bla..... etc.
with "Article 314" bold, and any parts of the text in bold, or in bold-underlined that are of special interest to me.
Every 3 months or so, I download the original (government-wise consolidated) text anew, in order to see if there have been any amendmends to them.
Now my problem becomes evident : Since I cannot find the way BC could treat the lines
Article 314 bla bla bla
and
Article 314
bla bla bla
as identical, i.e. cannot find how to treat line feeds or "new paragraph formfeed" or whatever as NOT making any difference, I only got TWO alternatives to do the comparison :
a) I could compare any further downloaded text by processing my formatted text with a text editor in which I replace DOUBLE new line characters with a special character, then replace all (single) line feed characters with a space, then replace the newly introduced special character with two linefeeds again ; then I'd compare with my formatted version. This could be automatted, but unfortunately, this is not feasible for me since within the articles (i.e. within the downloads, and within my stored text), new sub-articles begin with a single line feed (i.e. not a blank line between, as for a new article), and thus, such a macro would cause chaos within those sub-articles.
b) Thus, in practice, I've got TWO versions of my downloads : One with the article number within the first line of the text, as in the original text, and one, the formatted one, i.e. my "working copy", with the article number as sole first line before the article's text body.
Thus, I compare the new download not with my working copy, but with the intermediate version, no problem. Problems arise whenever there is an amendment (which occurs rather often, frenzy lawmaking (instead of solving problems) obligeing) : Here, I not only have to (rather) manually (because of formattings) sync the new official version with my working file, but also the intermediary file (since if I don't do it, it cannot be used anew for the next comparison in three months or so).
Hence, I could have posted within the 3-file compare section of this forum, but good heavens ! And of course, I could use the intermediate file for comparison only, reserving any synching to the original and the target files, then deleting the intermediate file and using the freshly downloaded version as the intermediate file in three months.
But needless to say, any which way I try, I always get stuck into trouble, doing a lot of manual paper scribbling, and invariably ending up with questioning myself, did I process this amendment, if yes, in both files, etc., etc. - I put three or four times as much time to this comparison task, as I should devote to it, and without being sure I've got a faultless new working version in the end (since that doesn't compare to the web version, because of those line breaks).
I'm even considering doing away with my line breaks, in order to be able to do without any intermediate version outstandingly complicating matters, or to use another (which one?) comparison software, not instead of BC, but on top of it, for this precise sort of task.
Help, please !
( Please allow for my touting of "Replicator", a fine freeware by the late Karen Kenworthy, perfect for any regular sync task, to be found on www.karenware.com )
Then, again, help file sometimes is not comprehensive enough for non-programmers. One problem I encounter is BC's inability (or mine, to discover how it works) to compare identical lines (i.e. NOT giving alarm then, instead of giving false alarms) that have been split in one of two reference files. Let me give an example:
I have downloaded some laws, from a governmental website. The articles there are plain-text, in the form
Article 314 blabla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla
bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla
bla bla.
In my downloads, I do some formatting, in the form
Article 314
bla bla bla bla........
bla bla..... etc.
with "Article 314" bold, and any parts of the text in bold, or in bold-underlined that are of special interest to me.
Every 3 months or so, I download the original (government-wise consolidated) text anew, in order to see if there have been any amendmends to them.
Now my problem becomes evident : Since I cannot find the way BC could treat the lines
Article 314 bla bla bla
and
Article 314
bla bla bla
as identical, i.e. cannot find how to treat line feeds or "new paragraph formfeed" or whatever as NOT making any difference, I only got TWO alternatives to do the comparison :
a) I could compare any further downloaded text by processing my formatted text with a text editor in which I replace DOUBLE new line characters with a special character, then replace all (single) line feed characters with a space, then replace the newly introduced special character with two linefeeds again ; then I'd compare with my formatted version. This could be automatted, but unfortunately, this is not feasible for me since within the articles (i.e. within the downloads, and within my stored text), new sub-articles begin with a single line feed (i.e. not a blank line between, as for a new article), and thus, such a macro would cause chaos within those sub-articles.
b) Thus, in practice, I've got TWO versions of my downloads : One with the article number within the first line of the text, as in the original text, and one, the formatted one, i.e. my "working copy", with the article number as sole first line before the article's text body.
Thus, I compare the new download not with my working copy, but with the intermediate version, no problem. Problems arise whenever there is an amendment (which occurs rather often, frenzy lawmaking (instead of solving problems) obligeing) : Here, I not only have to (rather) manually (because of formattings) sync the new official version with my working file, but also the intermediary file (since if I don't do it, it cannot be used anew for the next comparison in three months or so).
Hence, I could have posted within the 3-file compare section of this forum, but good heavens ! And of course, I could use the intermediate file for comparison only, reserving any synching to the original and the target files, then deleting the intermediate file and using the freshly downloaded version as the intermediate file in three months.
But needless to say, any which way I try, I always get stuck into trouble, doing a lot of manual paper scribbling, and invariably ending up with questioning myself, did I process this amendment, if yes, in both files, etc., etc. - I put three or four times as much time to this comparison task, as I should devote to it, and without being sure I've got a faultless new working version in the end (since that doesn't compare to the web version, because of those line breaks).
I'm even considering doing away with my line breaks, in order to be able to do without any intermediate version outstandingly complicating matters, or to use another (which one?) comparison software, not instead of BC, but on top of it, for this precise sort of task.
Help, please !
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