VSmirk wrote: > I'm working primarily on Windows XP, but my solution needs to be cross > platform. > > The problem is that I need more than the fact that a file has been > modified. I need to know what has been modified in that file. > > I am needing to synchronize the file on a remote folder, and my current > solution, which simply copies the file if a date comparison or a > content comparison, becomes a bit unmanageable for very large files. > Some of the files I'm working with are hundreds of MB in size, or > larger. > > So I need to skip copying a hundred MB file that has had only a few > bytes changed and instead identify which few bytes have changed and > where those changes are. I was thinking having a module that worked > below the file system level, at the device level, might be a place to > look for a solution.
Sounds like the diff'g files part is the crux of it, look at sequence matching libs like (don't know if they'll handle strings this big: http://docs.python.org/lib/module-difflib.html for watching files' last-mod flags: http://www.amk.ca/python/simple/dirwatch.html http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/215418 http://python-fam.sourceforge.net/ http://pyinotify.sourceforge.net/ (there's a few recipes in the online cookbook, in fact) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
