File Formats getting lost in Beyond Compare - file-format

I created some new file formats for Beyond Compare. They work just fine. However, whenever I close Beyond Compare, they disappear and I need to reimport the formats. The same thing happened with some formats that I downloaded from their site, so I know it's not an issue with the way I defined them.
Is there any way to get around this?

From the Beyond Compare support team:
This can happen if your settings files are read-only.
To check your settings, run Beyond Compare 3, then select "Help >
Support". Click the "Explore settings folder" link.
File Formats are stored in the file "BCFileFormats.xml". Make sure
your user account has write access to this file, otherwise it won't
retain settings changes the next time you run Beyond Compare.

Related

Update file across multiple folder locations?

I need something that can copy a specified file any and everywhere on my drive (or computer) where that file already exists; i.e. update a file. I tried to search this site, in case I'm not the first, and found this:
CMD command line: copy file to multiple locations at the same time
But not quite the same.
Example:
Say I have a file called CurrentList.txt, and I have copies of it all over my hard drive.  But then I change it and I want all the copies to update.  So I want to copy the newer one over all the others.  It could 'copy if newer', but generally I know it's newer, so it could also just find every instance and copy over it.
I was originally going to use some kind of .bat file that would have to iterate over every folder seeking the file in question, but my batch file programming is limited/rusty.  Then I looked to see if xcopy could do it, but I don't think so...
For how I will use it most, I generally know where those files are going to be, so it actually might be as good or better if I could specify it to (using example), "copy CurrentList.txt, overwriting all other copies wherever found in the C:\Lists folder and all subfolders".
I would really like to be able to have it in a context menu, so I could (from a file explorer) right click on a file or selected files and choose the option to distribute it.
Thanks in advance for any ideas.
Use the "replace" command...
replace CurrentList.txt C:\Lists /s

How can I configure Git to ignore trivial changes (e.g. timestamp) in auto-generated code?

I am working with a tool which auto-generates a large amount of C code. The tool generates code for a batch of .c and .h files at each run. For some reason, the tool isn't smart enough to recognize when the files have no substantial changes, so in many cases it simply updates a timestamp in the comments at the top of each file. Otherwise, the file remains unaltered.
When I run git status in that scenario, I sometimes see dozens or hundreds of files changed. But as I review the changes to the individual files, most of them have no real changes - just an update to the timestamp. I have to go through each file one-by-one to determine if there are any actual changes to be committed.
Is there a way to configure Git so that it can ignore inconsequential changes such as the timestamp in the header comments? Or how might I otherwise deal with this situation?
Thanks for your help.
Is there a way to configure Git so that it can ignore inconsequential changes such as the timestamp in the header comments? Or how might I otherwise deal with this situation?
Yes; this is the purpose of a filter.
You might be familiar with git's notion of "clean" and "smudge" filters already, that's how it handles line ending conversion. When you are on a Windows computer and have Windows-style line endings in your working directory, you might set a .gitattribute like * text=auto indicating that you want files checked into the repository with "normalized" Unix-style line endings. In this case, the files will have the "clean" filter applied to convert \r\n line endings to \n style line endings. Similarly, the files will be "smudged" on checkout to convert from \n to \r\n on-disk.
You can create your own clean and smudge filters to remove (or add) data when translating between the working directory and the repository. For these files you can add an attribute:
*.c filter=autogen
And then you can configure your autogen filter, with commands to run in the "clean" (into the repository) and "smudge" (into the working directory) directions.
git config --global filter.autogen.clean remove_metadata
git config --global filter.autogen.smudge cat
(Using cat is a "noop" as far as filters are concerned).
The Pro Git book has more detailed examples of creating your own filters.
I discovered a way to address the problem of trivial changes using Beyond Compare. I will describe the process as it pertains to ignoring timestamp updates in auto-generated C files, but it can be easily adapted to other situations and languages:
Configure Beyond Compare as the Git difftool. See here for specific details about how to do this.
(Optional but helpful) Add a Git alias for the git difftool --dir-diff --no-symlinks command (for example, dtd).
Make some changes (e.g. auto-generate your files), and run git dtd to do a directory diff. Beyond Compare will open and show you a before/after Folder Comparison of your changes.
Open a Text Compare session window for one of your changed files. Open the Tools menu and select File Formats.
Open the Grammar tab, delete the "Comments" grammar element.
Add a new grammar element and give it a meaningful name such as "Generation Time Comment".
For Category, select the "Delimited" grammar element. In the "Text from" box, enter the text you would like to ignore. For example, if the timestamp in your auto-generated code starts with the string * Generation Time:, enter it into the "Text from" box. Check the "Stop at end of line" checkbox.
Click the "Save" button and go back to your Text Compare session window.
Open the Session menu and select Session Settings. Open the Importance tab.
Look for your new grammar element (e.g. "Generation Time Comment") and uncheck it. This will tell Beyond Compare to treat it as an unimportant change.
Open the Comparison tab, select Rule-Based Comparison.
Change the dropdown at the bottom of the dialog to Update session defaults.
Close Beyond Compare, and then reopen it again by running the git dtd command.
All of the files in the Folder Compare session which contain nothing but an update to the timestamp will be shown with unimportant differences. If you want to completely hide files with unimportant differences, toggle off Ignore Unimportant Differences in the View menu.
Reference: https://www.scootersoftware.com/support.php?zz=kb_unimportantv3

What file types are associated with an application on Windows7?

I want to find out which types of files are associated with Microsoft Word on my System. All these file types should be handled in a special way by my application. How do i get a list of all files types that are associated with an application like Ms-Word? I know there is a dialog to set the default programs. But there is no entry for Ms-Word and i need a mapping in the other direction. I am not sure if this is a programming question at all. This is what I need:
Ms-Word:
.docx
.doc
.odt
That takes a slog through the registry that's not guaranteed to be unambiguous. Startup Regedit.exe to follow along, open the HKCR hive and look at the registry keys whose name starts with . Quickest way to find relevant ones is by using Edit > Find and type "word".
First one you are likely to find is .doc. Note the default value of the key, that's the ProgId. It is "Word.Document.8" on my machine, I have Office 2013 installed.
The ProgIds are registry keys themselves. Navigate to HKCR\Word.Document.8 to see what it looks like. Expand the node to see the sub-keys, the one that matters is CLSID. It is "{00020906-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}". That has been the guid for Word for the past 20 years. Whether it will be for the next 20 years is anybody's guess.
You can continue to search but the fidelity start to drop off. The CLSID is a registry key itself, you can find it back in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID. The LocalServer32 subkey's default value contains the path to the executable. "C:\PROGRA~2\MIF5BA~1\Office15\WINWORD.EXE" on my machine. A short name in MS-Dos 8.3 format, yours is pretty likely to read differently.
So, for now, I'd recommend to go from HKCR\.ext => HKCR\ProgId\CLSID and compare with the anointed guid. It is likely to work for a while, not forever. Hard-coding the extensions isn't terribly wrong either. Do note the ambiguity you'll discover when you search, filename extensions like .htm, .pdf, .xml can be opened with Word as well but is not the default association. And some are not documents, like .wll
Thanks i did find another workaround. At my german version of windows i search for "Dateityp" or "file association" and selected "Dateityp immer mit einem bestimmten Programm oeffnen" or "Make a file type always open in a specific program". The dialog shows the file types mapped to programs. Then i just collected the types that are mapped to Ms-Word.

Using bukhantsov.org command line query output with options

I am trying to use the tool here business objects query builder output
And there are virtually no examples, so I'm struggling to make it work. It produces no errors, but outputs no file in the directory where the batch file is, that I can see.
Here is the code inside querybuilder.bat:
set lib=c:\Program Files\Business Objects\Common\4.0\java\lib
java -cp "querybuilder.jar;poi-3.8-20120326.jar;%lib%\*" org.bukhantsov.querybuilder.Program %*
Here is the code inside what I am running, which I've named RunQuery_ALLACTIVE.bat, except of course with my Server, Username, and Password changed for the purpose of this post.
I have this all on one line, with no line breaks.
querybuilder.bat -cms:SERVER -username:OURUSERNAME -password:OURPASSWORD -query:"SELECT * FROM CI_INFOOBJECTS where SI_SCHEDULE_STATUS = 9 order by SI_NAME" -auth:windowsad -excel "Output.xls"
Can't tell if the - options go on different LINES ?
Can't tell if I'm supposed to put output file in quotes, or if it should be an existing file or not?
can't tell if for Windows AD (which we use), I would put "Windows AD" or WindowsAD, I'm assuming no spaces obviously.
Tons of unanswered questions on this tool - it LOOKS cool, but has anyone actually successfully used it? Can't really find comments or history on the 'net..
To answer your questions:
The options go on the same line, not on different ones
As Joe said, you'll need to specify the output file as -excel:"Output.xls"
If you want to use Windows AD, you'll probably need to specify secWinAD (case-sensitive).
If you're not sure about the command line options, I suggest you build up gradually: first only specify the required options, then add the optional ones one by one so you know which one is giving you problems.
Also, I noticed that the download page contains a version compiled for XI3.x and BI4. Make sure you use the correct version, corresponding to the version of BusinessObjects you're using. Also, verify the path in the batch file to see if it points to a valid folder containing the JAR files for the BusinessObjects environment.
Update:
I just noticed that the same author/developer created another application (GUI, not command line) that might be a bit easier to use. Have a look here.

Filesystem links on a FAT32 formatted storage

I know FAT32, as well as FAT16/12 neither support symbolic links nor hard-links. However I came up with this idea:
The FAT specification describes that every file is associated with a directory-entry. In my understanding, one could say that a file-entry in a directory somehow or other points to the file's content.
So, how can I define two directory-entries which point to the same file-content? Or, what could prevent me from doing so?
Use case: I have a USB mass storage device for my car radio, and I want to use directories as playlists since the radio software doesn't support playlists. So it isn't important to me how Windows behaves when doing this.
This should work for simple issues. I.e. it works as a hack / workaround and I don't know what happens if you rename / move / remove files. So, you should not do this on your main hdd.
I edited the directory-entries manually using a hex editor. I modified clusters as well as file-sizes and successfully faked hardlinks. My car-radio and even Windows (7, 64Bit) have no problems with playing back the original and "hard-linked" mp3-Files I used.
When I'm opening the device again in the hex-editor none of my modifications are changed back (See chkdsk issue in answer #1 - but as far as I know chkdsk has to be started manually, anyways.
What you are talking about ("two directory-entries which are pointing to the same file-content") are hard links. chkdsk will report them as cross-links and break them, "repairing" the files (in fact making the copies).
MichaelPh posted instructions on SuperUser:
https://superuser.com/a/486829/51237
It's possible to use Disk Probe (on XP only, I've yet to get it to write the changes on Win7) to modify the cluster a FAT Directory references. This method can be used to redirect the DCIM folder (or a subfolder) to point to the folder used by a different scan device.
Whether this is a good idea or not is a different matter and you use this at your own risk.
Insert the Eye-Fi card either in it's USB Card Reader or directly into an SSD slot and note the drive letter it's installed as (assumed to be F:\ for simplicity)
Ensure all Windows Explorer windows for the card and sub-directories are closed.
Run Disk Probe
Select Drives->Logical Volume
In the Open Logical Volume dialog double-click F:\ in the Logical Volumes list
Click the Set Active button for the Handle F: has been selected as. You can leave the handle as read-only for now.
Select Tools->Search Sectors...
Check Exhaustive Search, enter DCIM in Enter characters to search for and Search
You should find a match (mine is at 8192). Select No on the "Found match..." dialog to cancel the rest of the search.
Select Sectors->Read and increase Number of Sectors to at least two so that the whole directory table is included.
Find DCIM in the ASCII on the right of the Disk Probe screen, this is the start of the FAT entry for the directory. Make a note of the hex value of the 27th byte of the record (each entry is 32bytes), this is the directory cluster reference. This value is require to revert the DCIM directory back to normal use if required.
Find the entry for the directory you want to redirect DCIM to and again make a note of the 27th byte in the record.
Go back to the 27th byte of the DCIM record and change it to the value noted in step 11.
Select Sectors->Write and then click Write it on the Write Sector dialog. A warning will come up if you opened the sectors as read-only. Yes to overwrite if you're happy to make the change.
Opening the DCIM directory in Windows Explorer will now show the contents of the target directory.

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