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172 MS-DOS User's Reference
Limitations on Comparisons
^
FC uses a large amount of memory (enough to hold 100 lines) as
(
)
buffer storage space to hold the text files. If these files are larger
^-^
than available memory, FC will compare what it can load into
the buffer space. If it doesn't find a match in those portions of
,
*
the files in the buffer space, FC stops and displays the following
\_x
message:
resynch
failed.
Files
are
too
different.
M
For binary files larger than available memory, FC compares both
files completely, overlaying the portion in memory with the next
i
)
portion from disk. All differences are output in the same manner
as for those files that fit completely in memory.
How to Use FC
The syntax of FC is as follows:
For ascii comparison —
.
fc [/a] [/c] [/L] [/Lb n] [/n] [ft] [/w][/nnnn] filename1 filename2
For binary comparison —
—'
fc [/b] \lnnnnn\filenamel filename2
The filename1 option specifies the first file or set of files that you
want to compare, while the filename2 option specifies the second
,
\
file or set of files that you want to compare. FC matches the first
—'
file against the second and reports any differences between them.
Comparing text files
For example, to compare two text files called monthly.rep and
.
\
sales.rep, you would type the following command:
^-^
fc
/a
monthly.rep
sales.rep
If you want to specify a set of files, you simply use a wildcard as
part of the filename. For example, if Pete and Betty both have files
called report.txt, report2.txt, and reporQtxt, they might use FC
K^J
to see if their files are identical. They would use the following
command:
fc c:\user\pete\report7.txt \user\betty\report7.txt
^—^
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