# Auxiliary Functions

`syncdr` provides some auxiliary functions that might come in handy to better understand the content of your directories, even before taking certain synchronization actions.

To develop some examples, let’s start by calling `toy_dirs()`. This auxiliary function creates toy directories within the syncdr environment, containing samples common files as well as files exclusive to either directory. These toy directories are deleted every time a new session is started.

    # Create .syncdrenv with left and right directories
    .syncdrenv =toy_dirs()
    #> ■■■■■■■■■                         27% | ETA:  8s
    #> ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■               60% | ETA:  5s

    # Get left and right directories' paths
    left  <- .syncdrenv$left
    right <- .syncdrenv$right

Together with `toy_dirs()`, you might want to use `copy_temp_environment()`, in order to copy the original environment and play with the various {syncdr} functions on this copied environment rather than the original one which remains untouched.

Search for duplicate files

One useful auxiliary function is `search_duplicates()`, designed to generate a list of duplicate files within your directory. Duplicate files are identified based on identical content, regardless of their filenames. By default, `verbose = TRUE` will show you the list of duplicate files. To return it invisibly, set `verbose = FALSE`. In this latter case, a message will still pop up to let you know when the identification of duplicates is completed.

    # example
    search_duplicates(right, verbose = TRUE)
    #>
    #> ── Duplicates in 'C:/Users/wb621604/AppData/Local/Temp/RtmpspeU5x/right' ───────

Save sync status file

Another auxiliary function is `save_sync_status`, which comes in handy to track and document the status of files within a directory over time. This function generates a summary of file synchronization details, including file hashes and modification dates, for each file in the specified directory. The summary is saved as a file within a _syncdr subdirectory, so that sync status information is easily accessible.

The `save_sync_status` function supports various save formats (e.g., .fst, .csv, .Rds), depending on the available packages and user-specified options.

    save_sync_status(dir_path = right)