How to compare two ftp folders non-recursive with specific file types

sssccc · Jan 21, 2015#12015-01-21T14:36+00:00

I am using UltraCompare 8.20. So, far I have been doing simple compares of two files, local or from ftp, from within UE which has been working fine.

Recently, I have had to compare contents of two folders on Unix quite frequently. I am facing the following issues:

1. I can't open FTP folders from Open button in the two panes in the compare session. The pop up window for the Open button does not have an option to open from FTP. I have to drag them from the Explorer pane on the left to the two folder panes on the right.

2. Having done that, when I click on compare, it seems to download all files in all the folders and subfolders under the two folders I have selected. The options setting of Recursive Compare is unchecked. So, I don't know why it downloads all the files which is unnecessary and time consuming because each of those two folders have subfolders that contain hundreds of files that I don't want to compare.

3. One time I allowed it to download all the files and do the compare. At the end of it, the compare results only show a summary of what files are different and what files match. No line by line results are shown.

What I want to do is a line by line compare of the two folders and of a certain file types only. I can see an Ignore Option for the file types (haven't used yet) but don't see a Compare Option for the file types. It would nice to have this option as then I can specify only the file types I want to compare.

Any help in achieving what I intend to do is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Mofi · Jan 22, 2015#22015-01-22T06:50+00:00

First of all, do you use UltraCompare Professional or UltraCompare Lite. This information is displayed in title bar of the main UltraCompare window.

I'm using already UltraCompare Professional v15.00 at the moment. There is above both folder panes beside button Open for local and network folders also Open from FTP.

In menu Options there is Set Filter to specify only the file types by file extension which should be included in the folder comparison.

In menu Session there is Session Properties where all settings for a folder comparison can be also set. There are also buttons to open local and network folders or open from FTP. There can be also set which files/folders to ignore. And of course the folder compare mode can be selected as well, a basic or a full compare or even a smart compare.

A basic folder compare taking only file date and file size into account with FTP folders is problematic. First a file uploaded from anywhere to an FTP folder results in file getting current date/time of FTP server. This makes basic folder comparisons based on file date in most cases useless. (There are rare exceptions.) So a basic folder compare with an FTP folder can be most often done only using file size. But on Windows computers text files have often carriage return + line-feed as line terminator and on FTP servers most often running *nix the text files have just line-feed as line terminator. Therefore very often the file size differ although contents with ignoring line terminator difference is identical. Another problem is that there is no standard for directory listing. How the FTP server returns the list of files and folders with/without timestamp and with/without file size depends on FTP server. FTP clients use often various regular expressions to find file date and file size information in directory listings.

So a real basic folder compare with one FTP folder and a local/network folder or between two FTP folders is most often only possible with ignoring timestamp differences which is an option in Session Properties as well as in Options - Folder Ignore Options and the text files have identical line terminators to be able to make the compare on file size only.

With UC v8.50 the setting Use server file listing for basic folder compare (avoids downloading files) was added to tab Advanced in FTP/SFTP Account Manager to be able to run a basic folder compare with an FTP folder from this server using only data in directory listing without temporary downloading the files.

Edit:

This setting was moved to Options - Configuration - FTP in UC v14.00. So it is now a general FTP option not associated anymore with a specific FTP server via the FTP account.

sssccc · Jan 23, 2015#32015-01-23T16:49+00:00

Hi Mofi,

Thanks for your comments.

First off, I am using UC 8.20 Professional.

I found the "Open from FTP" button on the folder panes. I don't know how I missed it. I was expecting the first "Open" button would display the FTP option the way it is shown in the left pane but I guess not.

Set Filter is good only to filter the final display. It does not prevent UC from downloading ALL the files in the main folder and all of its subfolders. This is totally unnecessary and waste of time. I have only about 20 files in each of the two folders which I want a compare listing on. The subfolders have hundreds of files, some of them very large, which I don't really care about. However, UC's progress windows shows that it is downloading each and every file. I just need a Comparison Listing of these 20 files and possibly displayed in the Output Window without having to click on each file.

With regards to Session Properties, it has Ignore Options for file types but no Compare option. I have tried both Byte by Byte and Smart comparison. In either case, I simply get a list of files in the two panes that either match or are different. To see actual differences, I need to click on each of the files and see the differences.

Mofi · Jan 23, 2015#42015-01-23T17:54+00:00

As I have done FTP folder comparisons only rarely in the past, mainly just during some beta testings of UC, I have some gaps in FTP folder comparisons knowledge.

Does the usage of Ignore folders/file types in the session properties make a difference on which files are downloaded for the folder compare?

Yes, it should be used and the session should be saved for easy re-use next time.

I agree that downloading and comparing files which should be ignored is completely useless and this should be corrected by IDM Computer Solutions, Inc if that was not already done in a later version of UltraCompare Professional.

A folder compare always produces just a list of files with appropriate indications independent on which comparison mode is used. The comparison results lists can be different depending on basic, full or smart comparison. For a difference between full and smart comparison some text ignore options should be enabled as otherwise a smart compare is equal a byte-by-byte compare, for example ignoring line terminator differences. Those smart compare options can be configured at Options - Configuration - Ignore Options - Text and are of course used also for text compare sessions by default. Or the smart compare options are set for current folder comparison session only by clicking on button Text Ignore Options after selecting Smart (includes text compare with ignore options) in Session Properties dialog.

I really don't know at the moment what check box Text mode in result is for in the Session Properties dialog.

Another solution to avoid downloading files for comparison is the usage of option Use CRC compare in the Session Properties dialog. This option is not available if configuration setting Use CRC compare for FTP files is not enabled at Options - Configuration - FTP. Of course the FTP server must support one of the commands to calculate CRC32, MD5 or SHA1 sum.

Edit:

The option check box Text mode in result has no effect on folder comparison itself. This option determines if into result file created on clicking on Save Result Report in menu File not only the folder comparison result is written, but also the smart text compare results of the files being different.

Jan 29, 2015#52015-01-29T18:43+00:00

sssccc, please note the two edits I made in my previous 2 posts.