Compare is a binary file compare utility with features that are a significant improvement over the "fc" command that comes with Microsoft's 32-bit operating systems. Compare is a Win32 console mode (command line) application that uses Memory Mapped file I/O for increased performance. Unlike "fc", Compare handles wildcards properly, and will recurse subdirectories. With "fc", the output you get from comparing multiple files scrolls off the screen before you can make any sense out of it. Compare allows you to specify what results you want to see, and displays them as compactly as possible. A simple summary is displayed at the end to tell you how many files were identical, and how many weren't. Performance-wise, compare is about 15% faster than fc.
Windows 95 not supported
I coded this using a few calls that are only available in
Windows 98 and up. Shame on me! Need to fix that one day.
Should be very easy to fix.
Comparing a file to itself.
compare happily compares a file with itself. It should
instead print an error message to warn the user that they
may not be comparing what they think they are comparing.
Numerous options are not implemented.
This is an alpha release. It works really well, but I intend
to add a few features before beta and final.
ERRORLEVEL reporting is not as advertised.
I need to fix this. I think it currently works like this:
FreeWare. Source will be available and GPL-ed when I get around to it. Bug me if you really want it.
compare-0.7.zip (v0.7) is the third alpha version.
Fixed tons of crap. Now uses my reusable directory iterator component so that its behavior in the face of wildcards is consistent and correct. Recursion with wildcard specs other than *.* work as expected now. Handles zero length files much more appropriately.
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Copyright ©2002, Ted Felix