brik-2.0: description + notes
Brik generates and verifies 32-bit CRC values (checksums) for files. It is useful for quickly verifying a large set of files in a distribution after a download etc.

The purpose of brik is to complement strong cryptographic file authentication methods by a method that is not as strong, but significantly faster and which is convenient for verifying a large set of files. For a stronger (and slower) method check out md5sum from GNU textutils.

Brik is designed to generate CRCs which are the same across all computer systems that use the ASCII character set, provided each text file is in the usual text file format for each system. Brik will also optionally use binary CRCs calculated using every byte in a file. Such binary CRCs are portable across systems for binary files that are moved from system to system without any newline conversion (LF <-> CR/LF).

Brik can be asked to decide by examining each file whether to calculate a text mode or binary mode CRC for it.

Here's an example output for brik -G *.[ch]

# Whole file CRCs generated by Brik v2.0.  Use "brik -C" to verify them.

# CRC-32        filename
# ------        --------

4234597963	Xmincludes.h
1022226926	bitmaps.h
3045721212	capture.c
1037322833	cursor.c
3829505053	event.c
3355838296	globals.h
2507020940	help.c
3808167246	main.c
1127722239	menu.c
2567271484	overlay.c
1085779538	rband.c
2655945501	setting.c
 290508064	ui.c
Assuming the above output was saved into a file /tmp/brik.out, running brik -Cv /tmp/brik.out in the same directory, would compare the CRCs of the files with the ones saved and output the following:
4234597963  ok  Xmincludes.h
1022226926  ok  bitmaps.h
3045721212  ok  capture.c
1037322833  ok  cursor.c
3829505053  ok  event.c
3355838296  ok  globals.h
2507020940  ok  help.c
3808167246  ok  main.c
1127722239  ok  menu.c
2567271484  ok  overlay.c
1085779538  ok  rband.c
2655945501  ok  setting.c
 290508064  ok  ui.c

Without -v, brik will remain silent unless it finds a problem.

To auto-install this package, go back and click on the respective install icon.