Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Compare Folders Fast and Efficiently with DiffDog

Three user preferences in DiffDog work together to accelerate directory differencing tasks into hyperdrive, especially when you compare folders with thousands of files.

DiffDog can perform specialized comparisons. For instance, XML comparison mode commands DiffDog to determine whether two files contain equivalent XML content, even if they would be different in a text comparison because of spacing, line-ending, or attribute order variations. For the fastest directory comparisons, choose Quick Comparison mode, which only looks at file sizes and modification dates.

DiffDog Quick Comparison toolbar button

When you compare large directories, most often you want to quickly locate differences. Choose the Hide Equal setting to avoid listing all identical files.

DiffDog Show/Hide equal toolbar button

Show/Hide empty directories should be set to Hide, otherwise subdirectories that contain identical files will be listed, but since their contents are equal, none of the files are shown.

DiffDog Show/Hide empty directories toolbar button

After you choose settings and click the Compare button, DiffDog flies through the directory comparison.

DiffDog Quick Comparison progress bar

When the comparison is finished DiffDog displays a concise listing showing only the differences, with a summary message at the bottom of the window. The toolbar in the screenshot below illustrates the settings for Quick Comparison on, Show Equal files off, and Show Empty directories off.

DiffDog directory comparison results

DiffDog saves your preferences to apply to the next folder comparison, and DiffDog even includes a quick synchronization tool to merge folders in either direction.

DiffDog Synchronize directories summary

Find out for yourself how fast DiffDog can run your folder comparisons – download a fully-functional, free 30-day trial!

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Automate Data Transformation with FlowForce Server

Altova designed FlowForce Server to provide comprehensive automation, management, and control over data transformations performed by dedicated high-speed servers. FlowForce Server Beta 3 is currently available to users of MapForce Enterprise and Professional Editions at no charge during the beta test period.

FlowForce Server can provide hot folder automation of data mappings and maintains a detailed activity log users can monitor remotely in a Web browser window. The screenshot below shows the log for FlowForce Server running the MapForce data mapping CameraLogToGPX we wrote about in the blog post titled Process Multiple Input Files in a Single Data Mapping. This mapping used wildcards to specify multiple input files for processing.

FlowForce Server job log

It only takes a few minutes to set up, run, and review the results of jobs like this on FlowForce Server.