Support » Fixing WordPress » Easy way to compare my WordPress folder to standard install?

  • Hey there,

    This might be something easy that I just can’t think of, or it might be impossible and I’m crazy for asking – but anyway:

    Is there a way for me to compare my site’s WordPress files against those of a standard WordPress installation? I’m using WP as a CMS, and had to do some pretty involved code hacking to get it working the way we needed it to – not just in wp-content, but in wp-admin and wp-includes as well. The problem now is, I don’t have it documented as well as I would like, and if we ever want to upgrade, it is guaranteed to break.

    Optimally, I would just like to see which of my WordPress files have any changes from the originals. I don’t need to see what the changes themselves are, I can figure it out from there.

    Thanks in advance

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Moderator Jan Dembowski

    (@jdembowski)

    Forum Moderator and Brute Squad

    If you are on a UNIX/Linux/BSD box and have shell access, try downloading and extracting the WordPress version you want to compare, and diff your install from the WordPress download.

    $ curl http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz | tar xzf -
    $ diff -r wordpress/ /path/to/your/install/ > diff-output.txt

    Download and look at diff-output.txt and that will tell you what files are different, which ones exist in one place and not the other etc.

    There is probably an easy way to do this on your PC or Mac but this works too.

    Thread Starter amp343

    (@amp343)

    Hey jdembowski, thanks for the reply.

    I tried out your suggestion, however it’s not quite what I’m looking to do. It does do a good job of showing which files exist / don’t exist between the two directories, though, so I’ll have to keep that snippet on hand in case I need to refer to it, thanks.

    In this case, I’m trying to figure out if the contents of each file is different. I know that the file names and locations will be mostly the same. The real question is which files have inconsistent contents. Any other suggestions?

    I’m totally useless with this UNIX command type of stuff, but your first suggestion seems to be a good start.

    Thanks again!

    Maybe i am missing something in your question, but why not do it manually?
    Open Cpanel to view the files you have running.
    DL the same version of WP you have running and open the same file in a text editor // do a split screen type of thing and compare.

    Tedious..yes, but it you didn’t do the ‘changed file’ routine during set up it will be educational.

    If there is another faster and simpler way to do this, I am interested as well.

    Thread Starter amp343

    (@amp343)

    ^ Yes, tedium is the main reason for not doing it that way.

    If I have to, I have to, but not looking forward to spending a day that way.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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