DirectoryFingerPrinting.Library

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DirectoryFingerPrinting.Library

DirectoryFingerPrinting.Library (short: DFP lib) is a powerful .NET/C# library designed for creating and collecting file and directory checksums and metadatas, for forensic, version or change management tasks.

Purpose: This library offers types and methods for retrieving all or specific (configurable) differences between the files in two directories. Save the current state (meta-data of whole files) of a directory as a tiny DFP file, later you can compare the content of the directory against the DFP file and so recognize if there were any changes, and if so what has been changed in that directory.

The DFP library offers a comprehensive set of features, including:

• Retrieving metadata such as checksum, creation date, last modification date, and size for files in a directory and subdirectories (recursive).
• Calculating checksums (hashes) for all files within a directory.
• Comparing and detecting changes between two directories or fingerprint files.

Key Features

• Obtain file metadata: Access creation dates, modification dates, sizes, and more.
• Calculate checksums: Generate hash values (e.g., SHA-1) for files within a directory.
• Identify changes: Detect additions, removals, and modifications to files.
• Efficient file comparisons: Quickly compare and report differences between directories.
• Selectable hashing algorithms: CRC32, MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA512

UML class diagramm

Demonstration code

public void Demo()
{
   // Create settings:
   IOptions options = new Options
   {
         UseHashsum = true,
         UseSize = true,
         UseVersion = true,
         UseLastModification = true,
         HashAlgo = EHashAlgo.SHA512,
         // More options...
   };

   // Create metadata factory:
   IMetaDataFactory metaDataFactory = new MetaDataFactory(options);

   // Get the metadata for a single file:
   IMetaData metaData1 = metaDataFactory.CreateMetaData(@"C:\dir\filePath.ext");
   IMetaData metaData2 = metaDataFactory.CreateMetaData(new FileInfo(@"C:\dir\filePath.ext"));

   // Get the metadata for files in a directory:
   IEnumerable<IMetaData> metaDatasB = metaDataFactory.CreateMetaDatas(@"C:\dirPath");
   IEnumerable<IMetaData> metaDatasA = metaDataFactory.CreateMetaDatas(new DirectoryInfo(@"C:\dirPath"));

   // Create differencies-calculator factory:
   IDirDiffCalculator diffCalculator = new DirDiffCalculator(options);

   // Get file differencies between files in A and B:
   IEnumerable<IFileDiff> differences1 = diffCalculator.GetFileDifferencies(metaDatasA, metaDatasB);

   // Get file differencies between two DFP (files):
   IDirectoryFingerprint dfpA = null;
   IDirectoryFingerprint dfpB = null;
   // Load/convert dfp A...
   // Load/convert dfp B...

   // Get file differencies between dfpA and dfpB:
   IEnumerable<IFileDiff> differences2 = diffCalculator.GetFileDifferencies(dfpA, dfpB);

   // Show or save differences2...
}