# How to compare the content of catalogued modules? **URL:** \ **Category:** Forum\ **Tags:** Adabas-Natural, Natural, Natural-on-Linux\ **Created:** [April 7, 2008, 1:18pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-compare-the-content-of-catalogued-modules/76498 "2008-04-07T13:18:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Matthias1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@Matthias1](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Matthias1)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 1:18pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-compare-the-content-of-catalogued-modules/76498/1 "2008-04-07T13:18:07Z")
Hello all! We got three Natural-environments here at our company (Development, Test and Production). Now we have to compare the catalogued modules (=GPs) of all environments to find out code-differences. If we compare the timestamps of GPs, we got thousands of differences (e.g. a catall in Development-Environment changes all timestamps). So we got the idea to compare the content of the modules - i.e. comparing the md5-checksums of them. There are still thousands of differences. But this is not the real truth. I did some “investigations” and found out, that the naturals version and the version of the OS, some timestamps and lots of other stuff are stored inside the GPs. I guess many of the differences are coming from different Natural-Patchlevels or OS-Versions. The code itself should be the same in most cases. So my idea is to cut out all version-info etc. and only to compare the code itself. But is there any documentation about Natural’s GP-Format on Open Systems? It seems that the natural-Version is stored in Byte 27-30. The module’s timestamp is in Byte 41-48, the GDA-timestamp in Byte 49-56. But how can I find out the position of OS-Name and OS-Version? Thanks, Matthias ---
**Author:** ![Ralph\_Zbrog](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/user_avatar/techcommunity.softwareag.com/ralph_zbrog/32/78_2.png) [@Ralph\_Zbrog](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Ralph_Zbrog)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-compare-the-content-of-catalogued-modules/76498/2 "2008-04-07T18:35:41Z")
The format of the GP won’t help you. Your technique was proposed at the Natural Conference a few years ago, and Software AG replied that the generated code could vary with each patchlevel of the compiler. That is, the generated code for a specific source statement could change. Even if you could ignore timestamps and version numbers, its very unlikely that two GPs would be identical. ---
**Author:** ![Matthias1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@Matthias1](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Matthias1)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 9:42pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-compare-the-content-of-catalogued-modules/76498/3 "2008-04-07T21:42:53Z")
> [@Ralph Zbrog](#): > > Your technique was proposed at the Natural Conference a few years ago, and Software AG replied that the generated code could vary with each patchlevel of the compiler. I think you’re right. The code could vary - but in most cases it doesn’t. I did some hexdumps and diffs on some GPs and most differences are like that (screendump of my shell): ```auto prompt> hexdump -Cv /path_to_dev_lib/GP/FRRX000N.NGN > FRRX000N.dev prompt> hexdump -Cv /path_to_prod_lib/GP/FRRX000N.NGN > FRRX000N.prod prompt> diff FRRX000N.dev FRRX000N.prod | tr '<>' 'dp' 2,3c2,3 d 00000010 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 08 00 12 06 01 01 16 00 00 |................| d 00000020 46 52 52 58 30 30 30 4e c2 35 ad 80 bc bc a0 00 |FRRX000N.5......| --- p 00000010 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 08 00 12 06 01 01 05 00 00 |................| p 00000020 46 52 52 58 30 30 30 4e bc 4e 8f a5 2a 99 a0 00 |FRRX000N.N..*...| 43c43 d 000002a0 31 30 47 65 6e 65 72 69 63 5f 31 32 30 30 00 00 |10Generic_1200..| --- p 000002a0 38 47 65 6e 65 72 69 63 5f 31 30 38 35 32 00 00 |8Generic_10852..| 57c57 d 00000380 20 20 41 ad 80 bc 60 a0 00 00 20 20 20 20 20 20 | A...`... | --- p 00000380 20 20 41 4e 8f a5 2a 5d e0 00 20 20 20 20 20 20 | AN..*].. | 69c69 d 00000440 20 20 20 20 20 20 41 ad 80 bc 60 a0 00 00 20 20 | A...`... | --- p 00000440 20 20 20 20 20 20 41 4e 8f a5 2a 5d e0 00 20 20 | AN..*].. | ``` Differences are: - natural Patchlevel (hexdump-line 010) - the modules timestamp (hexdump-line 020) - the OS-Version (hexdump-line 2a0) - another timestamp (hexdump-line 380) - another timestamp (hexdump-line 440) The only thing I’ve done is a stow on FRRX000N.dev. FRRX000N.prod is from 2005-01-30. And my conclusion: The code itself is identical. The problem remains: Natural-Patchlevel and the module’s time stamp is on a fixed position inside the GP. The OS-Version and the timestamps are “variable”. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/original/3X/c/d/cd19967bb605d28a72d77eb83a1cae22f3df2eb8.svg) [@system](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 2:49pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/how-to-compare-the-content-of-catalogued-modules/76498/4 "2021-04-02T14:49:19Z")