fcompare README.md

🧩 fcompare

fcompare is a Bash-based command-line tool to compare two folders and generate clear reports on differences. It highlights file additions, deletions, and content changes using rsync and diff, with both plain-text and HTML output.

---

Perfect — that structure is clean, flexible, and user-friendly. Here's how you can document the two options in your README.md under an Installation section:

---

🔧 Installation

You have two options to use fcompare:

Option 1: Local Use (Simple & Portable)

Run fcompare.sh directly from your project or any folder.

Requirements in same folder:

• fcompare.sh (main script)
• exclude.txt (optional exclude list)
• fcompare_html_report.php (for HTML output)

./fcompare.sh -s ../src -d ../dst -n diff_report

This method requires no installation and is great for testing or use in specific projects.

---

Option 2: Global Install as a Command (fcompare)

Make fcompare available system-wide.

sudo cp fcompare.sh /usr/local/bin/fcompare
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/fcompare
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/fcompare
sudo cp fcompare_html_report.php /usr/local/lib/fcompare/

Now you can run it from anywhere:

fcompare -s ../src -d ../dst -n my_report

💡 The HTML report generator will be found at:

/usr/local/lib/fcompare/fcompare_html_report.php

---

🧼 6. Uninstall (optional)

sudo rm /usr/local/bin/fcompare
sudo rm /usr/local/lib/fcompare/fcompare_html_report.php

---

🚀 Usage

fcompare -r -s <source> -d <destination> -n <name> [-o <output folder>] [-x <exclude file>]

Required arguments:

• -s <source>: Source folder (e.g. ../dev)
• -d <destination>: Destination folder to compare against (e.g. ../production)
• -n <name>: A short identifier to label the result files (e.g. dev_VS_production)

Optional:

• -r : recursive
• -o <output folder>: Where to store the result files Default: current directory
• -x <exclude file>: exclude file (e.g. ./project/exclude.txt)

---

📄 Output Files

The following files will be created:

• <name>_RESULT_RSYNC_DRY.txt List of changed/missing files detected by rsync --dry-run

• <name>_DIFFERENCES.txt Plain-text output showing line-by-line diffs

• <name>_DIFFERENCES.html Color-coded HTML report (green = added, red = removed)

---

🧪 Example

fcompare -s ../dev -d ../production -n dev_VS_production -o ./out

Creates:

out/
├── RESULT_RSYNC_DRY_dev_VS_production.txt
├── DIFFERENCESdev_VS_production.txt
└── DIFFERENCES_dev_VS_production.html

🖼 Example Output

Here's what your DIFFERENCES.html looks like with fcompare:

---

📁 Excluding files

Add ignore rules to an exclude.txt file in the same directory as the script. This is passed to rsync using --exclude-from=exclude.txt.

Example exclude.txt:

*.log
node_modules/
.cache/

---

📦 Dependencies

Make sure you have the following installed:

• bash
• rsync
• diff
• php (required for fcompare_html_report.php to generate the HTML output)

---

✨ To Do / Ideas

• --open to auto-open the HTML report after generation
• --no-html to generate text-only output
• Color-coded CLI preview
• Optional recursive vs non-recursive modes

---

📄 License

MIT — use it freely, modify it, and share it.

---