Potential bug with file order in checksum file

[johngalt2022]

Hello all!

I would like to report the following behavior, which is maybe a bug: when selecting files and sub-directories and creating a checksum file, files are sorted in the following way in the generated checksum file:

• Files belonging to the main directory are in the same sort order as displayed on screen, which is good

• However files belonging to sub-directories seem to always be sorted in the default order returned by Windows (as described here: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/?p=1603)

I'm not sure if this the desired behavior? I guess it would probably make more sense if the sort order selected for the main directory also applies to all sub-directories.

(This was tested on Windows 7 64-bit with Total Commander 64-bit v10.00.)

Thanks!

[Horst.Epp]

There is no need for any order as all files are there with path.
The sequence has no impact on later checking.

[johngalt2022]

No indeed: I agree all files should be here, and the checksum file should work as expected; however since the sort order is taken into account for the main directory, I think it could be nice if it was also applied for sub-directories if possible

[Dalai]

Sorting a directory costs resources, i.e. time and performance. A directory needs to be iterated completely before it can be sorted, meaning TC would need to iterate every directory twice. The way it is now, TC iterates every directory only once (in a FindFirstFile/FindNextFile loop, I guess) and calculates the checksums for every file immediately. While it may not matter much (or at all) for smaller directories, it will matter for directories containing large number of files.

Regards
Dalai

[johngalt2022]

Thanks for your replies!

Yes, performance-wise, there would be a slight cost to sort sub-directories, but after all, it is the same when you browse these directories from Total Commander, so I guess it would be acceptable (especially when compared against the time required to calculate the checksums); we could also imagine an option to enable or disable sorting in the "create crc-checksum file" dialog.

I just wanted to explain why I created this topic: since the sub-directories sort order indeed seems to rely on FindFirstFile/FindNextFile functions, the result is different depending on the file system: e.g. with NTFS, default order is "approximately alphabetical", but with FAT32, it is much more random (see https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/?p=1603); which is what confused me since the behavior was different between two checksum files, with everything being the same, except the file system.