CompareFolders description
Compare files, folders, and CRC32, MD5, SHA1 checksums

CompareFolders is a Java application to compare two folders to determine if all files and subfolders are identical.

The folders may be on the same computer, on the local network, or they may be represented by checksum files. Files or subfolders that are not the same are reported to the user. The intention is to decide if two different distribution folders have the same contents.

Checksum files are used when the original files or folders are not available. A checksum file is a plain text file in XML (Extensible Markup Language) format with the name, size, and checksums for each file.

Checksums are small hexadecimal "signatures" for testing whether or not files have been copied correctly, such as over a network. One person sends a file along with the checksum computed on the original computer. A second person calculates a similar checksum for the received file, and if the two checksums agree, then the received file is assumed to be correct.

This CompareFolders application supports CRC32, MD5, and SHA1 checksums. It is extremely unlikely that two files will have the same MD5 or the same SHA1 checksum and still be different (which can’t be said about CRC32).

CompareFolders allows you to use it in more than one way. You may generate checksums for files and folders, and save those checksums in a text file. You may compare two checksum files. You may compare a checksum file and a folder of files. You may do a complete comparison of two folders, where each file is compared byte-by-byte (not with checksums).

The XML output produced by this program can be read by most XML applications, such as those on many internet web sites.

CompareFolders differs from UNIX "md5sum" and "sha1sum" and Windows "MD5summer" in that it supports multiple checksums and uses XML format for storing checksums in text files.

Other programs for exact file comparisons (byte-by-byte) are "comp" on DOS/Windows and "cmp" on UNIX; "WinDiff" on Windows will compare folders and subfolders.

Requirements:

· Java 1.4 or later