dirval 1.1.2

Create and validate a directory stamp based on deterministic path hashing.

Directory Validator (dirval) 📂✅

Directory Validator is a Python utility that creates and verifies a unique hash stamp for a directory. This stamp, saved as a JSON file, represents the directory’s structure (relative paths, excluding the stamp file itself), allowing you to quickly detect changes in the directory layout.

🛠 Features

• Stamp Creation: Generate a deterministic SHA-256 hash from all relative paths (files and subdirectories).
• Validation: Recalculate the hash to determine if any files or directories have changed.
• Exclusion Handling: Automatically ignores the stamp file (directory_stemp.json) in the directory root.
• Simple CLI Interface: Easily create or validate stamps via command-line options.

📥 Installation

Install Directory Validator via Kevin's Package Manager under the alias dirval:

package-manager install dirval

This installs Directory Validator globally so you can run dirval in your terminal. 🚀

🚀 Usage

Create a Directory Stamp

Generate a stamp (hash and timestamp) for a directory. The stamp is saved as directory_stemp.json inside the directory.

dirval <path_to_directory> --stamp

Validate a Directory

Compare the current directory state against the stored stamp to check for any modifications.

dirval <path_to_directory> --validate

📖 How It Works

• The script recursively walks through the given directory and collects all file and subdirectory paths (ignoring the stamp file in the directory root).
• It sorts the collected paths and computes a cumulative SHA-256 hash.
• The resulting hash, along with the current date and time, is saved in a JSON file (directory_stemp.json) within the directory.
• For validation, the script recalculates the current hash and compares it with the stored hash to detect any changes.

🧑‍💻 Author

Developed by Kevin Veen-Birkenbach

• 🌐 veen.world

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

🤝 Contributions

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to fork the repository, submit pull requests, or open issues if you have suggestions or encounter any problems. Let's improve directory validation together! 😊