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Here's the scenario:

  • I create a ZIP archive using some GUI package like WinZip, 7-Zip or whatever by right-clicking on a directory "somename" and selecting "Compress to archive 'somename.zip'"
  • When the archive is completed, I open it and discover that some files don't exist in the archive (for reasons yet unknown).
  • I want to find all files that are missing from the archive without having to extract the archive to another directory, then doing directory diff, etc.


Is there a tool (GUI or command-line, standalone or built into a compressor, for Windows or Linux, I don't care) that can walk through an archive and compare its contents against a directory on the filesystem?

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Do you have files that are hidden, system, read-only, encrypted and/or with/without the archive flag that your zip software is configured to ignore? –  DMA57361 Oct 21 '10 at 17:30
@DMA57361 - No, the files have standard attributes and are not encrypted. I have a sneaking suspicion that non-English (Unicode) characters in the filenames have something to do with it. It's possibly a bug in the compressor..I want to get to the bottom of it. –  Basil Oct 21 '10 at 17:53
@Ivo Flipse: Why did you remove jZip?? –  paradroid Jan 10 '11 at 23:32
@Paradroid: meta.superuser.com/questions/1860/… –  Ivo Flipse Jan 11 '11 at 9:40
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1 Answer

up vote 0 down vote accepted

Its not a free tool, but Beyond Compare supports this. If you're going to be doing much as far as diffs go Beyond Compare is well worth the cost.

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That is awesome, thanks! –  Basil Oct 22 '10 at 14:02
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