🔄 File Synchronization System

An automated, bidirectional file synchronization engine built in Python, supporting local directories, ZIP archives, and remote FTP servers.

📖 Overview

[cite_start]This project provides a highly modular system for synchronizing files between diverse storage locations[cite: 448]. By utilizing Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and Abstract Base Classes (ABC), the system is designed to be easily extensible. [cite_start]It automatically handles the creation, modification, and deletion of files across different environments in real-time[cite: 449].

🏗️ Architecture

The core of the system relies on an Abstract Base Class called Location, which defines the contract for any storage medium. Currently, the system implements three concrete storage locations:

• [cite_start]FolderLocation: Interacts with local file systems[cite: 451].
• [cite_start]ZipLocation: Interacts directly with ZIP archives, allowing real-time injection and extraction of files[cite: 450].
• [cite_start]FTPLocation: Interacts with remote FTP servers for off-site backups or remote syncs[cite: 450].

✨ Key Features

• [cite_start]Real-time Monitoring: Uses the watchdog library to actively listen for file system events (creation, deletion, modification) in local folders[cite: 458].
• [cite_start]Automated FTP Polling: Periodically polls FTP servers to detect remote changes and sync them locally[cite: 452].
• [cite_start]Integrity Validation: Calculates MD5 checksums (hashlib) to accurately detect modified files, avoiding unnecessary transfers[cite: 455].
• Bidirectional Sync: Ensures that changes in Location A reflect in Location B, and vice-versa.
• [cite_start]Factory Pattern: Dynamically parses connection strings (e.g., ftp://..., folder:...) to instantiate the correct storage classes[cite: 454].

🛠️ Tech Stack

• Language: Python 3.x
• [cite_start]Core Libraries: os, hashlib (MD5 Checksums), ftplib (FTP interaction), zipfile (Archive handling)[cite: 457, 458].
• [cite_start]External Dependencies: watchdog (for file system event monitoring)[cite: 458].

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

Make sure you have Python installed, then install the required dependencies:

pip install watchdog

### Usage
The script runs from the command line and requires two target locations. The locations are specified using prefixes (`folder:`, `zip:`, `ftp:`).

**Basic Syntax:**
```bash
python main.py <location_1> <location_2>

Examples:

1. Sync two local folders:

python main.py folder:./source_dir folder:./backup_dir

2. Sync a local folder with a ZIP archive (Live Backup):

python main.py folder:./my_project zip:./project_backup.zip

3. Sync a local folder with a remote FTP server:

python main.py folder:./website ftp://username:password@ftp.myserver.com/public_html

Once started, the script will perform an initial synchronization and then begin actively monitoring both locations for any future changes.

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Developed by Iustin Istrate - Computer Science Student