File Compare Tool for Software Developers – Case Studies

There are many software developers among the users of Compare Suite. These professionals share their experience and best practices about using the software.

Compare a library of program distributive with archive copy after each antivirus scan

We use your product to compare a library of program distributive with reference archive copy of the same programs after each antivirus scan.

Yury Stepanov, IT Director, Itfin, Russia, Moscow

Your product has functions enough for our purposes. We use your product as in a command-line as in GUI mode. Sometimes your product detects differences in identical files. Apparently this is due to the different attributes that Windows does not considered as significant. This feature of your product can be used for tracking an unscheduled file access and to improve security.

I would like to be able to fine-tune the structure of the report on the comparison directory. Also I would like to be able to configure ERRORLEVEL value when using the command line, depending on the type of differences.

I suspect that you don’t read all of these HEX coded numbers, what you need to know is if your .exe is the same or not.

Thank you for your idea about reporting error level. We’ve added it to our wish list. By the way, here is another case of using Compare Suite in testing environment that you might be interested in. In this case we used native commands of the batch file to test if the result of the comparison is 100% similar files or not.

Tool to perform user testing of data transfer utilities

I have used the Compare Suite program to perform User Acceptance testing of data transfer utilities. The product is very easy to use but has a wide range of functionality. I particularly like the reporting options and formats.

I used it to compare the contents of directories and files that have been created using a reference procedure and the new procedure that is being tested. This avoids having to manually check large amounts of data and produces reports that are easy to read and interpret. This has saved the developers and testers a large amount of time and effort in QC checking.

Anthony Frend, Scientific Support Analyst, Huntingdon Life Sciences, Alconbury, UK

A note from the developers

We have recently reviewed a case where Compare Suite was used in the automated testing process. It’s great to hear that you found Compare Suite useful for quality control as well.

In this case we are sharing the approached that we used to compare reference file with actual test results. We used Compare Suite to do the comparison, and a short CMD command to find out if the result of the comparison is “100% similarity” or not.

Compare Suite is integrated with command line and bat files

For those who want to start using Compare Suite for testing or automation, I’d recommend checking out the details about command line interface. We tried to do it easier, so there is an “Integration manager” that helps with the generation of command line parameters.

We are interested in hearing more experience about using Compare Suite for quality tests and quality control. I invite our visitors to share their experience in the comments.

Compare files to validate automation process

The comparison of files used in automated processes vs. the manually created files in order to validate the automation process.

Frank Duffy, Integration and Data Warehouse Manager, CommVault Systems, Inc., NJ, USA

I found it easy to use and clear in it’s presentation of differences. At one point I needed to compare three files and I was able to do that (as confusing as it was). This was the only product that I found that would let me visually perform this task.

A note from Compare Suite developers

Frank, thank you again for your feedback. We really appreciate that you shared with us your experience.

You mention three-way file compare; I agree this is one of the tricky functions the software has. We wrote an article about this feature that might help, but as shown by the experience of other users – you can master this feature only by using it. If you need to compare 3 files, but you must compare them by pairs, then from the viewpoint of functionality you don’t lose anything. You will just need to make few additional clicks.

As for testing results of one process versus results of manual process, I suggest you to have a look at the article that you’ve written recently. I share there my thoughts about how you can improve this process (making less false positive cases) using the line ignoring feature of Compare Suite.

Finally, if you have not automated the process yet, you can automate it using the command line interface of Compare Suite. Some software developers have done exactly the same and find this approach is really beneficial.

Compare two versions of the file with Compare Suite

Here are some stories from our users who compared two version of the file with Compare Suite software. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

Use Compare Suite to finding the latest version of required files

Compare Suite helps airlines:

We provide airlines world wide and business mangers a six-sigma solution for their functions.

Business professional: Jim Burger, JBs, MN. Aerospace consulting.
Compare Suite for finding duplicates:

The program provides many shortcuts for finding latest files and deleting duplicates in our server. The hardest job for me is finding the files I want to look and making sure I have the latest information.

Managing document versions by identifying and combining changes

My job frequently requires me to maintain documents in an environment that precludes the use of a collaborative tool. Managing document versions by identifying and combining changes can be challenging. Compare Suite makes my job easier by allowing me to quickly identify differences in documents.

It ignores the formatting that confuses other tools I’ve tried and goes straight to the all important content. I find myself using Compare Suite on a weekly basis.

Dan Barry

Database developers use Compare Suite to compare different versions of code files

Business professional: Theodore Bosinakis, Database developer, Greece.

Compare Suite helps Database developers:

Compare Suite is using to compare different versions of code files (.sql) that are usually outside the version control system. Moreover, it using to compare flat .txt files that are used for communicating data between the bank and other organizations. At this moment Compare Suite and the ability to compare folders came as a lifesaver as it would be a nightmare to compare each pair of files (about 200 pairs) individually.

Compare Suite as very easy to use application:

Compare Suite is very easy to use application that does exactly what it is supposed to do. It’s easy to learn to use, that if someone is experienced with windows application, (s)he doesn’t even need to take a look at the help file. Very useful feature is it’s capability to compare char-by-char as sometimes it is needed to find the difference in a (let’s say) 200 characters record and the difference is only one character.

Technical writes use Compare Suite to check different versions of various documents

Business professional: Peter G Martin, Contract Technical writer, New South Wales, Australia.

Handy toolkit with a collection of bells and whistles not found in such a compact form elsewhere, including facility to configure some aspects of special words etc.

Very useful at times to have folder comparison feature on top of individual file comparison, when reorganizing storage and working with controlled document storage. Helps in examining need for backups, and opportunity to make sensible comparisons of various file formats.

Quickly retrieve source code differences between different software releases

Use Compare Suite as comparison tool for software code:

I’m using Compare Suit to fastly retrieve source code differences between different software releases.

Paolo Calvo, Milano, Italy, Teamware, Project Manager.

Compare Suite as useful and helpful tool:

The product is very good, easy to learn and fast. It helped me in maintaining a few projects for which usual software maintaining tools were not applicable or unavailable.
I’m very satisfied with this product that offers features not usually found in other similar tools.
It integrates smoothly with Windows. It helped me save a lot of time and efforts.

Comparison files converted to various formats

Compare Suite helps software developers:

The software we develop use several methods to convert instrument data to various file formats.
I use Compare Suite to compare the output files from the various methods.

Scott Breyman, Decagon Devices, Inc., Pullman, WA.

Compare Suite as helpful and useful tool:

I have found Compare Suite to be a powerful and easy to use tool. It has a great many features that make it easy to use and help me to accomplish my tasks quickly and easily.
The results window uses different colors to help me identify the differences and the magnitude of the differences.
I find the comparison methods very useful when I have to compare the raw data files.

Use Compare Suite to compare XML’s, codes, text files, documents and folders

Compare Suite helps software engineer:

Compare XML’s, codes, Text files, documents, folders, compressed files and folders and create html reports.

Polo Romagos III, Accenture, Manila. Software Engineer.

Compare suite as helpful tool:

I am using Compare Suite now and works perfectly for my projects. I can compare anything I want with just one program. Helps me resolve differences quickly just by drag and dropping it to Compare Suite. I can easily find discrepancies in it’s easy to use and customizable view. Work has been lighter and you can even create reports with it’s “create html report” function. It’s a productivity program that one should have whether you are a novice user or experience I.T. Makes a lot of Difference!

Compare Suite for software verification process

We use the compare tool in our software verification process. Before any new version is released we compare the old to the new to check for things like unintended changes, incomplete comments fields etc. Indispensable tool for us.

Joet, Zukinut Enterprises, USA

Use Compare Suite to compare html files directly on web server without downloading to PC

Direct comparison on web server:

Compare html files, text files and pdf files. Ideally, we can compare html files directly without download html content to pc.

Jill Ye, Arbitron, Columbia, MD. Developer

Compare Suite helps developer:

I think the product is good and worth to try. I didn’t do much at this time. What I am really looking at is the way we can compare web page on two different server. Say one is our production server, the other is our testing server. With the compare, we can find out what is the difference between those two if any.

Use Compare Suite to comparison of binary files to see if words at certain offsets match each other

Compare Suite helps engineer.

Comparison of binary files of different lengths to see if words at certain offsets match each other.

Cailan R. Collet, Intel, Hillsboro, OR. Online tax preparation, a tax analyst.

Compare suite as helpful tool to find differences.

This is a very straight-forward tool to use, the drag’n’drop capability is particularly nice. I find that I use this over another tool I have available because of its ability to compare 2 files of different lengths and color-code the type and location of differences into the scroll bar, which simplifies tracking down the differnces and disregarding differences due to padding on the end of one file.

Used a automated test tool together with Compare Suite

Hi – just to let you know how we used Compare Suite to save many man days of effort. We have recently upgraded a very big system, which produces many hundreds of .csv, .xls, .txt files. We used a automated test tool (from Mercury Interactive) together with Compare Suite, and was able to run massive file checks over night, checking any differences manually the following day. This clearly saved us weeks of effort and not once did we get a “spurious” comparison. Very good product which I can highly recommend.

Rob Park, Testing
Consultant, Leading UK Utility

Use Compare Suite to compare backup for minimal risk delete or missing

Compare Suite helps technician:

Data recovery after migration failures. Backup data compare for minimal risk due to wrong delete or missing.

Marc, Mark5, Germany. Technician

Intuitive software:

The suite is very intuitive and small enough to load via pendrive at applied machine. Some filters could be refined, as for example: second refinement after first filter. There is no other grater improvement to be done because we understand that this suite is a closed application in itself.

Read more about how software engineers use Compare Suite.

Follow changes made to software systems with Compare Suite

We use Compare Suite for the documentation of file changes, the following changes were made to software systems.

Anthony Frend, Scientific Support Analyst, HLS, Huntingdon, UK

The application is comprehensive and easy to use. It can handle multiple file formats including MS Office, binary, zip files, RTF, CSV, HTML, XML and Open office. The application can also do some simple image comparison, but for more sophisticated analysis a dedicated application would be required. The comparison options are highly configurable. For example, you can set up a list of keywords that will be ignored during the file comparison or you can configure the fonts and colors used to highlight added, deleted or modified words or files. The reporting options are also useful as it allows us to store a concise report of documents or folder changes as part of the acceptance testing data package.

A note from the developers

Thank you for sharing your ideas about following the changes made using Compare Suite. There is one more feature that might make an acceptance testing even more reliable. With Compare Suite one can automate the comparison using command line. In this way you can manage to pass all the compare options (including lines to ignore) to the program and are able to generate necessary reports automatically.

If you think about some specific ways how Compare Suite can make your testing process easier, let us know.

Managing a large number of files that are replicated on network storage devices

Your Compare Suite solves a problem I have managing a large number of files that are replicated on network storage devices. It is very easy to scan a large number of files quickly and identify which files are different in some way.

As others have noted, I tried several other options that proved far less effective. Relative to the cost of most utilities, Compare Suite is a bit expensive for an individual consumer’s personal use. The compelling argument in favor of a purchase is the amount of time this tool can save. It can take a process that might take days or weeks to accomplish and reduce the time to a few hours.

Greg Scott, Yachats, OR

Use Compare Suite to compare differences in html files of different versions

Business professional: Lai Ai-May, Sky Ventures, Singapore. Software Engineer.

Compare Suite as quick tool:

Compare Suite is very simple to use. Just a few clicks and you have your results. When using the compare folder function, I like that you can double click to open the file that you want to see the actual differences, and that scrolling the opened files is also synchronized. The comparison is completed very quickly. Takes less than a minute to compare almost 2,000 html files.

Compare released to find malicious scripts

I use it to compare changes in different versions and releases. To search for change made by the malicious script.

Andrey Pachevsky, Developer, Regtime, Kazakhstan

Very good product. At various times, I tried similar products from other manufacturers. But they do not offer those features over which there is at this program. Starting from the selection of found differences and ending up changed from one file to another – like everything. Thought-out interface, ease of use, speed – this program has no equal in the market. Thanks to the manufacturer, that it continues to release new versions of the program and does not stop.

Comparing versioned documents against the original ones

We are comparing newly versioned documents, against the original to confirm that only the required changes have been implemented.

[do action=”linkedin”]https://au.linkedin.com/in/evan-solomon-52394224[/do]Evan Solomon, IT Administrator, Delta Laboratories, Sydney, Australia

Compare PDF has been a fantastic help to our organization, as we depend on the fact that changes made to mission critical documents are made right the first time, and where those changes might be small and hard to identify by visual inspection. The ability of Compare PDF to clearly indicate what has changed, and what has not changed has been a big help. It is more than likely that in the future, we will be buying additional copies.