Steven D'Aprano wrote: > This isn't a criticism, it is a genuine question. Why do people compare > local files with MD5 instead of doing a byte-to-byte compare? Is it purely > a caching thing (once you have the checksum, you don't need to read the > file again)? Are there any other reasons?
Because if you store a hash, then you can keep that around even when the original file is archived, moved elsewhere, or deleted. It's awfully helpful for building databases of files you've seen before. -- Erik Max Francis && [EMAIL PROTECTED] && http://www.alcyone.com/max/ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis Everyone wants to look good at his own funeral. -- Louis Wu -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list