History

19.04.97: GCompare 1.0 / GPatch 1.0
Inital release.

21.04.97: GCompare 1.1 / GPatch 1.1
Bugfix. Better examples.

26.04.97: GCompare 1.2 / GPatch 1.2
Speed improvements.

01.05.97: GCompare 1.3 / GPatch 1.3
Bugfix (GPatch failed on the most files greater than 64KB).

11.05.97: GCompare 1.4 / GPatch 1.4
GCompare uses a faster search algorithm.

01.06.97: GCompare 1.5 / GPatch 1.5
New file format (shorter patch files).
Some small changes.

05.07.97: GCompare 1.6 / GPatch 1.6
Bugfix: Possible counter overflow with large data blocks.

23.11.97: GCompare 2.0 / GPatch 2.0
File size limit increased (from 8MB to 2GB).
GCompare searches matching data in the already existing patch file too.
Three new coding algorithms.
GCompare uses an optimizer for best results.
Compiled with SAS/C 6.58 now.

04.12.97: GCompare 2.1 / GPatch 2.1
Recursive mode for GPatch implemented.
Better reaction in case of syntax errors or bad files.

14.12.97: GCompare 2.2 / GPatch 2.2
Version messages implemented.
Some small improvements.

24.12.97: GCompare 2.3 / GPatch 2.3
GCompare also uses in mode 3 the list search algorithm, if possible.
GPatch detects endless loops caused by circular references of the patch file
in the recursive mode now.
The version messages work better for non-C-strings.

05.01.98: GCompare 2.4 / GPatch 2.4
Fine tuning of some routines:
GCompare produces shorter patch files and works faster.
GPatch copies the protection bits from oldfile to newfile now.
GPatch options noversion and quiet added.

25.02.98: GCompare 2.5 / GPatch 2.5
GCompare: New search algorithm. Needs one megabyte more memory, but
works 4 times faster.
Command line options changed. The quick mode is the default mode now.
New options auto, deep, verbose and vary.
GPatch bugfix: Incorrect error message if a non-patchfile was selected
as patchfile.
Included versions for some unix platforms.
10.04.98: Added first PPC version of GCompare.

18.11.98: GCompare 2.6 / GPatch 2.6
GCompare: It is possible now to append new patch data to a patchfile
containig already patch data of the file to itself.
GCompare builds the patch data in a temporary file, so it can be stopped
without getting a corrupt patch file.
GPatch: In the recursive mode GPatch stops working, if a patch of a file
to itself is detected (the previous versions reported a circular reference).
If a patchfile contains different patch data for a file, then GPatch uses the
last.
Internal code cleanup for a smaller executable.

18.8.2002: GCompare 3.0 / GPatch 3.0
GCompare: New algorithm for very high search speed (three-dimensional
search arrays). Needs more than 128 MB of memory for one patch or more
than 256 MB to append additional patches to the patchfile.
Fixed the mechanism for multiple patches for one file introduced in 2.6 (did
not work for large files with more than one patchblock in mode 2, but because
the auto mode would not have selected mode 2 for this, nobody may have had
a problem).
Fixed a minor bug in the auto mode (files with match blocks only could be
recognized as identical by mistake and the optimizer did stop).
Changed the CRC algorithm to get a comparable result with other programs.
New algorithm for Amiga executables (reloc hunk encoding) for better results.
Many improvements of the coding algorithms. New file format.
Default mode is now mode 3, the old quick mode is used only for low memory
situations, because the 3D search is faster.
GPatch:
New options DIRECT and BACKUP.


Converted using GuideML 2.2, a converter written by Richard Körber <shred@chessy.aworld.de>