Bug#549292: ssdeep: No ouput for small files

[Kingsley G. Morse Jr.]

Package: ssdeep
Version: 2.2-1+b1
Severity: normal


Thanks for maintaining debian's ssdeep package.

I'm interested in using it on strings or small
files, and happened to notice that it produces no
output.

Here's how to duplicate:

    $ echo -e "hello\nworld" > data1 
    $ cp data1 data2 
    $ echo 1 >> data2 
    $ ssdeep -b data1 > hash 
    $ ssdeep -bm hash data2

At least for me, the last line produces no output.

It occurs to me that ssdeep may only work on files
bigger than a certain size.

If this is so, then perhaps ssdeep's man page
should explain what the minimum size is.

Even better, enhance ssdeep to actually work with
small files or strings.

Thanks,
Kingsley

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.25-2-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages ssdeep depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.9-6      GNU C Library: Shared libraries

ssdeep recommends no packages.

ssdeep suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information