How to ensure that two files are different (if date and size is same)?

kdar · 2013-03-07 18:43:38

I been asking this at an interview today.
What do you think are some practical methods that can be used to ensure that two files, which may have same creation date and same size in bytes, are different files?

I was trying to answer it based on different densities that those two may have.

What do you think are some other options? This question made me curious about this.

Last edited by kdar (2013-03-07 18:44:18)

graysky · 2013-03-07 18:44:16

Checksum

kdar · 2013-03-07 18:45:06

graysky wrote:

Checksum

I completely forgot about this.
Are there any other methods?

Last edited by kdar (2013-03-07 20:00:06)

carlocci · 2013-03-08 02:23:21

cmp

cfr · 2013-03-08 02:47:36

diff (will tell you if they are different even if they are binary)

file

modification time, owner/group, permissions, ACLs - these won't tell you the file content is different but then the creation time wouldn't do that, either.

Last edited by cfr (2013-03-08 02:50:36)

Arch Linux

#1 2013-03-07 18:43:38

How to ensure that two files are different (if date and size is same)?

#2 2013-03-07 18:44:16

Re: How to ensure that two files are different (if date and size is same)?

#3 2013-03-07 18:45:06

Re: How to ensure that two files are different (if date and size is same)?

#4 2013-03-08 02:23:21

Re: How to ensure that two files are different (if date and size is same)?

#5 2013-03-08 02:47:36

Re: How to ensure that two files are different (if date and size is same)?

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