.SH "SYNOPSIS"
-\fBfinddup\fP [OPTION]... [DIR1 [[and:|not:]DIR2]]
+\fBfinddup\fP [OPTION]... [DIR-OR-FILE1 [[and:|not:]DIR-OR-FILE2]]
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
With two directories, it prints either the files common to both DIR1
and DIR2 or, with the `not:' prefix, the ones present in DIR1 and not
in DIR2. The `and:' prefix is assumed by default and necessary only if
-you have a directory name starting with `not:'.
+you have a directory name starting with `not:'. Files are handled like
+directories containing a single file.
This command compares files by first comparing their sizes, hence goes
reasonably fast.
Here are the things I tried, which did not help at all: (1) Computing
md5s on the whole files, which is not satisfactory because files are
-often not read entirely, hence the md5s can not be properly computed,
+often not read entirely, hence the md5s cannot be properly computed,
(2) computing XORs of the first 4, 16 and 256 bytes with rejection as
soon as one does not match, (3) reading files in parts of increasing
sizes so that rejection could be done with only a small fraction read
The format of the output should definitely be improved. Not clear how.
-Their could be some fancy option to link two instances of the command
+There could be some fancy option to link two instances of the command
running on different machines to reduce network disk accesses. This
may not help much though.