split or merge files...

Post by **admin** » 02 Sep 2007 08:47

What I always wanted to know: many of my dear competing files managers offer split and merge files functionality. I think the last time I had a need for this was back in the pre-www era when the floppies were still flexible.

So, is this the bloat of bloats, or who needs split/merge?

Post by **j_c_hallgren** » 02 Sep 2007 09:02

I had a situation about 18 mths ago when I tried to locate a decent merge utility...I had a set of about 48+- HTML files that I wanted to append a small header HTML and trailer HTML file onto, and doing each manually would have been a pain and also possibly error prone...

The programs that I found tended to be primitive and quite small...some only about 20K, maybe?
Update: The one I still have in my Download folder is http://www.peretek.com/sfj.php Simple File Joiner ...

As I recall, I couldn't find one that did exactly what I needed so I believe I ended up creating a BAT file with COPY that appended the set of header/data/trailer into one output via concatenation/piping...

Update: Yup! Found the BAT file...multiple lines similar to

Code: Select all

copy aheader.html+done\h0101.htm+footer.html temp\h0101.html

That was first time I needed to do so in years!

Now for splitting: I recently had a need to split a large MP3 file into chunks of 10 min each (for my primitive thumb MP3 player that doesn't support bookmarking)...and I think I used "MP3DirectCut" for that...

Does XY need it? Not really, IMO...

Gandolf · Post by **Gandolf** » 02 Sep 2007 10:30

Merging is something I often use. I want to either merge text files of instructions, update info (I use it to merge the beta information for XY) and any small documents I want to combine into one. I know it's possible to use a text editor but often there is no need to see what the documents are, I just want them combined into one.

As for splitting, as Don said, floppies are not really used much to-day so the need to split files into 1.44Mb blocks is not really necessary. I do, however, split large files into smaller blocks for attaching to e-mails. I prefer it to attaching one very large file since each e-mail is sent quickly and you know it's gone, rather than wondering if the system has hung in some way.

If it's easy then add it, since it does seem to be a feature of most files managers.

jacky · Post by **jacky** » 02 Sep 2007 16:45

I'd say it's bloat...

I think those features are mostly there for binary data, as when it comes to text files it shuld be doable using other tools like text editors.
And there are many freewares to do such split/join out there, including to split with first part as an EXE auto-joiner.

I personally don't see no use to have XY do this, besides if you need to split files just use WinRAR

badams007 · Post by **badams007** » 02 Sep 2007 20:17

Split/Join programs abound (I sometimes use them) but 'find duplicate files' (as I know one competitor has), now *there* is something that would be lovely to have.

Post by **admin** » 02 Sep 2007 20:27

badams007 wrote:Split/Join programs abound (I sometimes use them) but 'find duplicate files' (as I know one competitor has), now *there* is something that would be lovely to have.

Yep, that's another one everybody (but me) has. And it is extremely popular apparently. One wonders how much time and energy mankind wastes in producing and finding duplicates...

One question: what is a duplicate? Same name, same content, or both?

badams007 · Post by **badams007** » 02 Sep 2007 20:52

Same content. Peeks inside various files and checks for identicalness.

I have amassed tons of them. It can happen.

Post by **j_c_hallgren** » 02 Sep 2007 20:56

admin wrote:One question: what is a duplicate? Same name, same content, or both?

One utility I've used on occasion (can't find it at moment!

) has options for user selected matching criteria, so it could be name, content, or both...

badams007 · Post by **badams007** » 02 Sep 2007 21:09

Ya, but for our purposes, just peeking inside to look would be enough, if Don didn't feel like going whole hog into it. <whole hog...hmmm...American for 'totally immersed' ?? over and above?? beyond the most basic?>

There are easy ways to find duplicate names of things...desktop search programs, plain old Windows search -- but very few to no ways of peeking inside to see the entire guts of files and compare them. (Well, there are lots of programs that cost $$$...I mean...but none that are built into WinXP that I know of. Not sure about Vista.)

Guts, whole hog?? I am butchering an animal today? What's wrong with me???

I find I have duplicates for various reasons. Some is that I move things around from Big to Laptop and back again...and end up with dups without realizing. Also, Save-As...some text editors don't have Rename...and u end up with same document under different names. And then again, there is just plain sloppiness and life going by so fast that some of us....save things like crazy and have no idea why it is asking us again and again to save...and things happen and we make a big huge mess. When we have a few saner moments, we like to think we can get a handle on it all and clean up. It's an illusion that keeps us alive and motivated. Just a quick Check for Exact Duplicate Contents would suit me. (Isn't that all that Dopus offers?) More would be GRAVY. !!

RalphM · Post by **RalphM** » 03 Sep 2007 08:25

That task is quite well solved in "Foldermatch", a tool I use whenever I need to do file comparisons.
It seems to be a bit outdated (no update for 2 yrs) but still does its job quite well.

Post by **serendipity** » 03 Sep 2007 11:25

Personally, i dont need split or merge thing. I am more looking forward to:

admin wrote:- undo/redo (and it's gonna be the best undo you've seen!)

To err is human and to correct that we need XYplorer.

panorama · Post by **panorama** » 03 Sep 2007 11:54

serendipity wrote:Personally, i dont need split or merge thing. I am more looking forward to:
admin wrote:- undo/redo (and it's gonna be the best undo you've seen!)
To err is human and to correct that we need XYplorer.

That one definitely gets my vote, too.

I'd also like a quadruple pane file manager - one for each of the dimensions I work in

lukescammell · Post by **lukescammell** » 03 Sep 2007 13:08

Merge/split - bah, I don't need it. If I did, I'd use something that excels in it.

Looking forward to undo/redo support and duplicates (both names and contents) would actually be pretty useful. A great way to keep your file system free of clutter.

Post by **admin** » 03 Sep 2007 14:18

lukescammell wrote:Merge/split - bah, I don't need it. If I did, I'd use something that excels in it.

Looking forward to undo/redo support and duplicates (both names and contents) would actually be pretty useful. A great way to keep your file system free of clutter.

I never intended to add merge/split, I was just curious. And to my surprise some people do use these functions. But I'm still not going to add it.

(BTW, it is incredibly easy to do, and when I see that people make money with Split/Merge software... why, oh, why did I decide to make a file manager!

)

Finding dupes is also very easy (the more interesting part is to do it fast). But, since I never serach for a dupes in my life, I have no idea what's the expected interface for this? Should I add a field somewhere to the Find Files tabs, to which you can drag+drop a file of which dupes are to be found? Or does this work on a whole directory, and the job is to list all files that are dupes of any other files in this directory?

ADD: if I'd add a CRC column to the file list, and you sort by that column, and I add a little coloring service that colors all column items that are the same as the column item in the previous row: wouldn't that be a nice dupe locator?

Post by **serendipity** » 03 Sep 2007 14:30

I think find dupes interface should be somewhat similar to find files with its own dupes tab and infopanel etc. Maybe you can make it part of find files too, like "Find files/dupes".
I have seen find dupe apps showing a list of files with one file in one color (green) and its dupes in different color (red).
But thats just me, maybe you have thought of something great already.