Introduction

ValidateIt! is a window/console program to compare two text files espesially usefull for judging in programming contests like ACM/ICPC. It can make several compare tests on two files. It's specially developed to be used in PC2 contest control environment. It can be configured either as passive (in window mode) validator or active (in console mode) validator to make auto judging possible. Programming Language: ISO/IEC 14882 C++ Compilation: MS 32-bit C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 12.00.8168 for 80x86 API used: Win32 API IDE: Microsoft Visual Studio Platform: Win32 on i386 License: Open Source - GNU General Public License Version 2 Development Time: Nov. 2005

• Executable Files: Latest stable version for Win32.
  [validateit-2.1.win32-release.zip]
• Source Files: Latest stable version and MS Visual Studio project files.
  [validateit-2.1.src.zip] OR [validateit-2.1.src.tar.gz]

When the program is executed, two files can be opened or drag-and-dropped to two panels of the main window. Two panels are named as Team's Output and Judge's Output just for convenience. Any two text files can be opened for comparison. When a file is opened in one panel, the number of characters and lines are shown. Also in each edit box, the character after the cursor is shown in the status bar.

ValidateIt! Main Window

Two Opened Text Files

Left and Right menus have options for open, close, save as, refresh (files don't refresh automatically), view in Notepad or Internet Explorer. Some of them has shortcut buttons in the main window. Recent files opened in each panel are listed in the menu for fast access.

Left Menu

A number of comparison methods are provided which can be selected in Compare -> Method menu or by the scroll box at the bottom of the main window. Each method ignores a specific kind of difference (except the first one). Briefly,

1. Exact (byte2byte) Compare: It performs a byte to byte comparation on two input files. Two files must match exactly both in size and contents.
2. Exact (byte2byte) Compare - Ignore CR: Same as above but doesn't see Carriage Returns (CR i.e \r) in both input files.
3. Skip Extra EOF Enters Compare: It performs a byte to byte comparation but skips any missing or exeeding empty lines (i.e enters) at end of file (EOF) of both files.
4. Skip Extra EOF Enters Compare - Ignore CR: Same as above but doesn't see Carriage Returns (CR i.e \r) in both input files.
5. Skip Extra Enters Compare: It performs a byte to byte comparation but skips any missing or exeeding empty lines (i.e enters) at any position of both files.
6. Skip Extra Enters Compare - Ignore CR: Same as above but doesn't see Carriage Returns (CR i.e \r) in both input files.

Compare Methods

When the desired compare method has been chosen, two text files can be compared using Method -> Compare! menu or the "Compare!" botton at the bottom of the window. If two files doesn't match according to the method, an error message shows the point of mismatch having three options to continue from the next character or from the next line or abort the continuation of the comparison. Two files shown in the following figure are the same except that the left one has one extra space at the end of each line. Finally, each activity performed by the application is logged and can be viewed by selecting Compare -> View Log or "View Log" botton at the main window.

Compare Result

Compare Log