Often enough I like to know whether the contents of two folders (which once have been identical or still are) have changed or not.
For this I wrote the following script:
#!/bin/bash
echo "enter the path of the two folders to be compared"
echo
read -p "input: folder 1 " ordner1
echo
read -p "input: folder 2 " ordner2
find $ordner1 -type f -exec sha256sum {} + > /tmp/sums.sha256
sleep 1.0
find $ordner2 -type f -exec sha256sum {} + > /tmp/2sums.sha256
sleep 1.0
cd /tmp
awk '{print $1}' sums.sha256 | sort > 1test.txt
awk '{print $1}' 2sums.sha256 | sort > 2test.txt
sleep 1.0
diff 1test.txt 2test.txt
echo
sleep 1.0
while true
do
read -p "proceed? input: y, n " a
if [ "$a" == "y" ]
then
rm /tmp/sums.sha256
rm /tmp/2sums.sha256
rm /tmp/1test.txt
rm /tmp/2test.txt
else
exit
fi
done
exit
It went through without any difficulties.
Here´s the protocol of bash -x:
bash -x ./script_Inhalt_von_Ordnern_vgl.sh
+ echo 'enter the path of the two folders to be compared'
enter the path of the two folders to be compared
+ echo
+ read -p 'input: folder 1 ' ordner1
input: folder 1 /media/rosika/0002-2D2B/aus_dem_Internet/A-Internet-Filme/
+ echo
+ read -p 'input: folder 2 ' ordner2
input: folder 2 /media/rosika/f14a27c2-0b49-4607-94ea-2e56bbf76fe1/vom_alten_32GB_usb-stick/aus_dem_Internet/A-Internet-Filme/
+ find /media/rosika/0002-2D2B/aus_dem_Internet/A-Internet-Filme/ -type f -exec sha256sum '{}' +
+ sleep 1.0
+ find /media/rosika/f14a27c2-0b49-4607-94ea-2e56bbf76fe1/vom_alten_32GB_usb-stick/aus_dem_Internet/A-Internet-Filme/ -type f -exec sha256sum '{}' +
+ sleep 1.0
+ cd /tmp
+ awk '{print $1}' sums.sha256
+ sort
+ awk '{print $1}' 2sums.sha256
+ sort
+ sleep 1.0
+ diff 1test.txt 2test.txt
0a1
> 030b00ac474c0d07231eecd4a6ee498e196c373ff755603ef91108fac93c850b
3d3
< 463cd0022378c3774e88a85686f4c3ca8699a3859df664629ceaba9b2fe26994
+ echo
+ sleep 1.0
+ true
+ read -p 'kann es weiter gehen? Eingabe: j, n ' a
kann es weiter gehen? Eingabe: j, n j
+ '[' j == j ']'
+ rm /tmp/sums.sha256
+ rm /tmp/2sums.sha256
+ rm /tmp/1test.txt
+ rm /tmp/2test.txt
+ true
+ read -p 'proceed? input: y, n ' a
proceed? input: y, n n
+ '[' n == j ']'
+ exit
rosika@rosika-Lenovo-H520e ~/D/K/prov [1]> echo $status
1
The last question I first answered affirmatively so that the tmp files would be deleted.
After that the last question was asked again and this time I negated it so that the script would exit.
BTW: the result was that out of the 18 files only one was different.
Of course. You´re perfectly right, Neville. You´re very attentive.
I wrote my original script in German and translated the respective input prompts for the forum here. It was a simple translation mistake. Sorry.
I corrected it in the meantime.
That´s the solution. Thank you.
Although I still had to use bash -x. Curiously enough bash -ex didn´t run the script properly…
The part
while true
do
read -p "proceed? input: y, n " a
if [ "$a" == "y" ]
then
rm /tmp/sums.sha256
rm /tmp/2sums.sha256
rm /tmp/1test.txt
rm /tmp/2test.txt
else
break
fi
done
exit
was skipped. No idea why that is.
But bash -x worked the way it was intended to and the exit code was zero now.
-e Exit immediately if a command exits with a non-zero status.
That´s surely the reason why the last part was skipped. .
Thanks for the praise, Neville.
It´s just a rudimentary script and surely can be refined as to its output messages.
As it is at the moment it works like this:
If there´s no output then the contents of the 2 folders are the same or haven´t changed.
If there´s been change the different hashes of the respective files are printed.
I assume that’s for debugging? Never tried this - I still use (in my scripts if I want to troubleshoot) :
set -vx
In my shell scripts if I want to debug, that’s something I inherited from ksh, and works in bash too… When done, I usually just comment it out…
Might look at “-x” and “-ex” in future when running a script and I want to see things like variables getting populated and what they’re populated with - thanks for the pointer
I looked at Daniel’s link.
Apparently one can use set -x to log just part of a script. That could be useful if you just want fo log one part of a long script.
Not many people use csh today. Part of my BSD heritage.
Yes, that´s surely a huge advantage, especially if a script has a certain length.
But set -x would be a line within the script, right?
If so, one would have to get rid of it in the final version of the script when debugging is no longer needed…
Yes, Neville. Extra files are taken care of as well.
Taking up the example from my post #1 I added two extra text-files in the first folder (only here):
BTW: this time I ran my original script, so the output is in German. Sorry. But you´ll get the gist of it.
Here´s the output:
./script_Inhalt_von_Ordnern_vgl.sh
Welche zwei Ordner sollen miteinander verglichen werden?
Eingabe: Ordner 1 /media/rosika/0002-2D2B/aus_dem_Internet/A-Internet-Filme/
Eingabe: Ordner 2 /media/rosika/f14a27c2-0b49-4607-94ea-2e56bbf76fe1/vom_alten_32GB_usb-stick/aus_dem_Internet/A-Internet-Filme/
0a1
> 030b00ac474c0d07231eecd4a6ee498e196c373ff755603ef91108fac93c850b
3d3
< 463cd0022378c3774e88a85686f4c3ca8699a3859df664629ceaba9b2fe26994
13d12
< 9d8128b9c773307df9d30af7be74e69b05eae2b76ceea3265a937d9a22f317b3
18d16 # this is new
< e703a44e5c3576206d1febf8ba1b55d56349317932eedea4c4beaad9f11269fc # this is new
kann es weiter gehen? Eingabe: j, n j
kann es weiter gehen? Eingabe: j, n n
So the output is 4 lines this time.
2 lines accounting for one file different in each directory. That was already the case before.
2 lines new, as I added 2 text files only in directory 1 but not in directory 2.
As I already said, it´s only rudimentary at the moment and certainly could be refined.
As it is just now it more or less only informs you whether there are any differences in the two folders compared and you can deduce how many files are affected.
That´s it for the main part.
But the good thing is: subfolders are also accounted for.
My main goal was to have a quick-and-dirty script available as I´m in the middle of transferring all the files (in folders and subfolders) from one USB-stick to another and want to make sure I have the exact same contents available… .
I was impressed with your script writing skills.
When I want to see if everything was copied, I do a right click on the folder and click on properties. It gives the count of the number of items and size of the folder. Then I do the same for the other folder.
If I want to see what has changed or update a backup of one folder to anther, I use a free open source program (GUI) called Free File Sync. It show everything that is different between the two folders in an easy to read format.
