What does FMDiff report?
Hidden, But Important File Information
Let's look at a Comparison Report as shown in a browser. The header unveils some details you've never seen before:
- Timestamp - The date and time the original file was created, independent of any later recoveries or clones
- Recover Count - How many times the file was recovered
- Used with FileMaker versions - in the order of first usage
- Used with System versions - in the order of first usage
The files compared here are publicly available, the "Old" one is an early download from www.excelisys.com, the "New" one comes from the FileMaker web site of today. As you can tell by the timestamp, both files have the same origin. The use counts and modifications imply that they took different development paths. You may download the complete FMDiff report (7 kByte).
In case there is a severe problem with on of the files an error message will be presented here (and no further difference reporting will take place).
You may just check a file for corruption with a specific procedure. Read how you can reliably test a file for corruption
An overview about the number of changes with direct links to the sections.
This shows the Section, Group, and Item hierarchy
- Whether an element was deleted [–] , modified [~] , or added [+]
- The element's ID or value label
- The old value or name
- The new value or name
- '--' indicates an empty value
- [123 bytes] is the size of an item (will be shown decoded in a later revision)
- The modificationID shows the number of modifications applied to an item
- With the free FMDiff Community Edition a '*' is shown for any ID and undisclosed element.
Please note: The Base Table IDs cannot be retrieved with any FileMaker Function. TableIDs ( fileName ) returns TableOccurrence IDs, not BaseTable IDs.
The Tables section lists the Base Tables, their Table Occurrences and Fields. For every Field more details are listed.
With the BaseTables the RecordChanges count is shown, an accumulation of all data modifications. This provides a clue about the usage of each table.
The Calculation representation:
Please note: TO, Field, and other names are shown for elements within the same file only. To see names from related files, a folder comparison must be done.
The CustomFunctions section:
The ValueLists section reports all custom values that have been changed.
The Scripts section:
The Relations section:
The complete list of reported sections:
- BaseTables
- Tables (TOs)
- Field Definitions including calculations
- Layouts
- CustomFunctions
- Scripts with detailled script steps
- Accounts
- PrivilegeSets
- ExtendedPrivileges
- Fonts
- Graphics
- FileReferences
- ValueLists
- CustomMenuSets
- CustomMenus
- Relationships
Download the complete FMDiff report (7 kByte) as html file.
Provided with this information you can tell:
- What, where, on what machine, and who did the comparison.
- All changes applied in a compact overview
- The differences in detail
- Which of two files is was most recently modified (which file is new?)
- How intensively the table data was used
- ... and if the comparison passes without error, that the file is OK.
With FMDiff you can prove a FileMaker file is in good shape, has not been modified - or in case it has, where.
Any information about FMDiff is subject to change without notice.
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