/finddups

Primary LanguageC

Finddups

Scans a set of files looking for duplicates it will organize into groups. This only works with directories (dir(s)) and regular files (reg(s)).

How It Works

If a directory is specified, the directory will recursively compare all files within itself before being compared with something else. A regular file by itself has nothing to be compared to, thus no operation is performed.

All arguments specified in the command line will be compared against one another in a sequential manner:

./finddups dir1 reg2 reg3 dir4
  • Compare dir1 to reg2, then reg3, then dir4
  • Compare reg2 to reg3, then dir4
  • Compare reg3 to dir4
  • Done

There are 3 cases for comparison:

  1. Compare directories to directories:

    • Algorithm:
      • Get one file from the first directory and compare it to all files in the other directory
      • Repeat this for all files in the first directory

  2. Compare directories to regular files:

    • Algorithm: Compare the regular file to all files in the directory

  3. Compare regular files to regular files:

    • Algorithm: A simple direct byte-by-byte comparison of both files