Product overview

DateWise Ltd's flagship product, FileCompare, performs comparisons of files that differ in some known way without requiring detailed file specifications. The most typical application of this tool is comparison of files with embedded dates or times.

A method so unique, its patented

This product is covered by Patent No. 6,236,993. Other patents are pending.

The key feature of our patent is that the process handles exact comparing of files whenever there is ambiguity over the location or format of multi-byte token(s) within the file. Those tokens may be dates, times, currencies, temperatures, etc. A sample of the our method is shown in the Technology section of this this web page.

Features

The following are some key features of our file comparison method and tools. Typical ways the utility is used are shown on the Applications page.

• Automatically recognizes reformatted fields representing the same values. For example, it can recognize the following dates may be identical: "Feb. 3, 2001" and "03.02.01".
• Automatically recognizes files which have been aged with no other changes. For example, a report may include a heading with a date. Now, report files are directly comparable, even when they contain execution dates or times.
• The process works on both text and binary files of unlimited size.
• The product is available in EBCDIC or ASCII versions for each platform.
• This utility saves time and effort of your programming staff by having much simpler setup operations for comparisons. It is generally sufficient to provide the utility only the names of the files being compared.
• Software switches are available to reduce the possibility of undesired matching. For example, suppose a programmer must verify two reports are identical except for the dates in the heading. The typical setting for comparing aged report files consists of the combination of specifying the date format from both files must match, that they are text fields and there are only 2-digit (or only 4-digit) years; or, slightly better yet, specifying the date format itself. That creates a very tight combination of switches that will virtually be unable to match any random change within the file, but still specifies only general information that a programmer would readily know. The setup (i.e. a couple of command line switches) for another report is probably identical, even if the report is from a different program.
• The utility saves effort and memory by not requiring a complex filing system to save and retrieve the configuration files for testing program output.

Plans for Expansion

We are currently looking at growing our patented method into five areas. If you have an interest in any of these areas, let us know as demand could effect which has higher priority:

• Expanded the format coverage. The current versions handle dates and embedded timestamps.
• Changing the basic comparison loop to recognize other adds/changes/deletes. The current version is focused on comparing files that are supposed to be identical.
• Migrating the utility to JAVA so that it will run everywhere a JAVA virtual machine is available. It is currently written in a very low level of ANSI-C for portability to other platforms, but that requires at least recompiling for the specific platform. A JAVA version would create either a single version on all platforms or two versions - one for all ASCII/little endian platforms and another one for all EBCDIC/big endian platforms.
• Expanding the product to compare specific environments, such as databases.
• Releasing it as a component that could be embedded into other developer products such as web robots or language compiler IDEs.

Availability

DateWise FileCompare is available as a utility for DOS/Windows, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, and MVS platforms.

Even though the product uses a state machine & parser to recognize tokens and recognizes literally hundreds of thousands of formats, the product often requires training for some site specific formats (which may be an additional charge). We can verify the current utility handles your site's formats before placing the order. A few versions can be ordered through our on-line retailer using a credit card. For further information, to verify compatibility, or to order other versions, use the "Mail" button below.

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Last modified September 8, 2001