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Newbie question: if[command not null]

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# 1  
Old 04-07-2011
Newbie question: if[command not null]
hi,

i have to put in my script a command that should tell me if the contents of two different paths are the same.

I thought to write an "if" command who makes the diff of two files which contains the `ls` of the folders and go on with the script if is not null, but i'm afraid of the fact that the diff is not null if the order of the files is different.

Please,can someone write me the best if command to compare the folders?
# 2  
Old 04-08-2011
Contents of paths, that means all (dir, file, link, device, FIFO) entry names in the subtree, permissions, flat file contents, link counts, modified dates, access dates -- well, they are probably never the same unless you can access both trees identically in each second. Diff two dirs does some of this. ls goes in alpha order, if I remember the man page right. You can always sort. find might be better than ls, providing relative paths of every entry name. cmp can compare file contents, even if binary, one file at a time. So, the first trick is good requirement writing! Smilie
# 3  
Old 04-08-2011
I'd try:
Code:
cd /path/to/dir1 
find . | sort > /path/outside/of/here/log1
cd /path/to/dir2 
find . | sort > /path/outside/of/here/log2
d="`diff /path/outside/of/here/log{1,2}`"
if [ -z "$d" ] ; then   #is $d empty?
  echo "Dirs are the same"
else
  echo "Dirs difer in these: " 
  echo $d
fi

Sorting because, even if the file subtrees contain same files, find may output them in different order.
Last edited by mirni; 04-09-2011 at 04:38 AM..
# 4  
Old 04-08-2011
You can use diff recursively on two directories and use the exit status to discern whether the paths are identical (special device files and the like excepted).
Code:
if diff -r dir1 dir2 >/dev/null; then
    echo identical
else
    echo different
fi

Regards,
Alister
Last edited by alister; 04-08-2011 at 11:30 PM..
# 5  
Old 04-11-2011
Uses multiple CPUs and finds all flat file differences, even binary files:
Code:
#!/usr/bin/bash
 
comm -3 <(
  cd dir1
  find * -type f | xargs -n999 cksum | sed 's/\(.*\) \(.*\)/\2 \1/' | sort
 ) <(
  cd dir2
  find * -type f | xargs -n999 cksum | sed 's/\(.*\) \(.*\)/\2 \1/' | sort
 ) |sed '
  s/^\t/dir2 /
  t
  s/^/dir 1 /
 '

This User Gave Thanks to DGPickett For This Post:
mirni
# 6  
Old 04-11-2011
That's a cool solution. I like the cksum part.
Just a little modification to deal with spaces in files:
Code:
find * -type f -print0 | xargs -0 -n999 cksum

# 7  
Old 04-12-2011
I never usek find -print0, since I can control that with start dir arg(s).

Here, it messes up the comm, making identical files on identical relative paths show different (all show different).

The xargs -0 option is nice when the input is lines of badly behaved file names. Some have hidden their borrowed space using 'mkdir ". " ' to make a hidden directory that is a little hard and scary to remove. Smilie
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