Directories
To compare two local directories side-by-side, call the diff command and supply the directory paths as arguments. For example:
diffdogserver diff "C:\Reports" "C:\ReportsNew"
diffdogcmdlclient diff "C:\Reports" "C:\ReportsNew"
The example above runs a quick comparison, which checks directories only for the size and modification times of their files and sub-directories; the contents of files are not compared. If you want to also check the contents of all files and sub-directories within the compared directories, set the --dir-compare-contents option to true. and the --mode option to the comparison mode you want (binary, text, or XML).
diffdogcmdlclient diff "C:\Reports" "C:\ReportsNew" --dir-compare-contents=true --mode=auto
Directory comparison options
Like with other comparisons, the compared directories can be either on the server or the client machine. Specify this with the --server-left, --server-right or --client-left, --client-right options. For example, in the comparison below, the first directory is on the server and the second one is on the client machine.
diffdogcmdlclient diff --server-left="/home/altova/reports" --client-right="C:\ReportsNew"
Other directory comparison options are the following:
•--directory-filter, --df lets you include or exclude certain files or sub-directories from the comparison based on criteria you define.
•--dir-compare-mod-times, --dt adds as comparison criterion the time when the compared directories or files were last modified.
•--dir-compare-mod-times-ignore-seconds, --di when comparing modification times (see previous option), this option ignores file or directory modifications made within the specified number of seconds.
•--dir-compare-sizes, --ds adds the directory size as comparison criterion.
•--dir-ignore-case, --dic ignores case in file and directory names
•--output-file, --o lets you set the name of the report file (text or XML) where the comparison results will be saved.
•--output-mode, --om lets you choose a format for the comparison report (XML or text). Note that a report in text format is not supported if the compared directories contain XML files and the comparison is an XML comparison.
Applying file comparison options
If a directory comparison is defined to check file contents (by setting --dir-compare-contents=true), then you can use all the available file comparison options (such as those that begin with --doc, --text, or, --xml). see the diff command reference). For example, if directories containing text files are compared, you can ignore blank lines or case inside the text files with a command like:
diffdogcmdlclient diff "C:\Reports" "C:\ReportsNew" --dir-compare-contents=true --mode=auto --text-ignore-case=true
Comparison results
The comparison result is reported by the exit code. If differences exist, a detailed text or XML report can be generated additionally. For more information, see Comparison Results.