FC v. 3.02 (c) 2004 Maurizio Spagni

FC compares two files or sets of files, in text or binary mode, and
displays the differences between them.

FC implements Paul Heckel's algorithm from the Communications of the
Association for Computing Machinery, April 1978, p264 - p268,
"A Technique for Isolating Differences Between Files".

This algorithm has the advantage over more commonly used compare algorithms
that it is fast and can detect differences of an arbitrary number of lines.
For most applications the algorithm isolates differences similar to those
isolated by the longest common subsequence.

The syntax is as follows:

FC [switches] [drive1:][path1]filename1 [drive2][path2]filename2 [switches]

 /A    Display only first and last lines for each set of differences
 /B    Perform a binary comparison
 /C    Disregard the case of letters
 /L    Compare files as ASCII text
 /LBn  Set the maximum number of consecutive different ASCII lines to n
 /Mn   Set the maximum differences in binary comparison to n bytes
 /N    Display the line numbers on a text comparison
 /Q    Don't show the list of differences
 /R    Show a brief final report (always active when using /S)
 /S    Extend the scan to the files in subdirectories
 /T    Do not expand tabs to spaces
 /U    Show the filenames of the files without a correspondent
 /W    Pack white space (tabs and spaces) for text comparison
 /X    Do not show context lines in text comparison
 /nnn  Set the minimum number of consecutive matching lines to nnn
       for comparison resynchronization

The program is LFN aware and use them automatically if the operating system
supports the long file names.

FC defaults to binary mode for files .EXE, .COM, .SYS, .OBJ, .BIN, .DLL
and .LIB.

In binary mode FC shows the offset in the file of the differing bytes, their
value in hexadecimal and, if they are ASCII printable chars, their ASCII char.

By default the binary compare stops after 20 differences but that value can
be modified through the /M switch. /M0 means "unlimited differences".
/M is interpreted as /M0.

A design limitation of this program is that, in the text mode file
comparison, only the first 32765 lines are compared; the remaining lines are
ignored. The line length is virtually unlimited.

FC supports wildcards in the file specifications. Some words on this:
- specifying a directory is the same as specifying all the files in that
  directory (i.e. "*.*").
  Example: "FC C:\ A:" is the same as "FC C:\*.* A:*.*"
- if no filename2 is entered then "." (the current directory) is assumed.
  Example: "FC C:\FOO.TXT" is the same as "FC C:\FOO.TXT .\*.*"
- if filename1 has wildcards but filename2 hasn't, then all the files
  matching filename1 are compared with the same file filename2.
  Example: "FC FOO.BK? FOO.TXT"
	   All the files FOO.BK? are compared with FOO.TXT
- if filename1 has wildcards and filename2 is a path followed by "*.*" then
  all the files matching filename1 are compared with the files with the same
  name but in the path specified by filename2 (if that file exists, of course).
  Example: "FC *.* A:*.*" or, in short, "FC . A:"
	   All the files in the current directory are compared with
	   their copy on A:
- if filename1 has wildcards and filename2 too then all the files in the path
  of filename1 and matching filename1 are compared with the relevant file
  matching filename2 in the path specified by filename2 (if that file exists,
  of course).
  Example: "FC *.TXT OLDS\*.BAK"
	   All the files in the current directory are compared with their
	   backup copy renamed .BAK in the subdirectory OLDS.
It's more easily done than said.
If what you really want is to compare each file in a directory with all the
files in another you can always use the form:
FC *.* MYDIR\????????.???

The /S option iterates the same pattern of search in the subdirectories with
the same name in both path.
  Example: "FC /S C:*.TXT D:*.BAK"
	   Assuming for example the existence of the subdirectories C:BOOK
	   and D:BOOK, this command compares all the *.TXT files with their
	   backup copies *.BAK in the current directories and also all the
	   BOOK\*.TXT files with their backup copies BOOK\*.BAK.

The exit codes for ERRORLEVEL are as follows:
	0	All the files match
	1	At least a pair of files differs
	2	Invalid parameter on the command line
	3	File not found
	4	Error opening file(s)
