Code

This is a handy little script for checking Simple File Verification (SFV) files. These are commonly used when distributing files over Usenet, where a large file is sliced into many parts and posted separately. It is just a list of checksums of the smaller parts of the file, so doesn't guard against evil-doers, just random errors.

Instructions

1. Download the bash script
2. Save it somewhere convenient (e.g. on your path)
3. Make it executable: chmod a+x sfvcheck
4. Run the script from a terminal

When run, it will list any problems then exit. In the usual unix fashion, if there is nothing wrong it will say nothing and exit cleanly.

Prerequisites:

• Anything with bash, sed and BSD's chksum command (in practice, this likely means MacOS X or any other BSD derivative as the GNU chksum typically supplied with Linux distributions doesn't allow calculating the right checksum for an SFV file).

Let me know if you have any trouble with this, and I'll fix it or improve the instructions here.

Known bugs

None.

History

• Original version, posted in 2008
• v0.6: Tweaked to allow mixed-case, trailing zeroes and use the exit status for success/failure