FileArb is a cross-platform C++ command line program for quickly creating in parallel an arbitrary number of arbitrarily large text files or binary files.

Three use cases for FileArb:

1. Performance testing the write speed of storage hardware such as USB drives, NVMe drives, and network file shares.
2. Performance testing file-I/O-intensive programs such as FileRevisor which perform many file operations such as text replacement.
3. Learning the true cost of cloud storage resources by way of creating, for example, 10 1-GB files on an Azure file share followed by examining the resulting Azure bill.

• FileArb command line usage
• FileArb program modes
  • create-binary-file
  • create-binary-files
  • create-text-file
  • create-text-files
• FileArb code structure as it appears in Visual Studio Code on Linux
• FileArb code structure as it appears in Visual Studio 2022 on Windows
• Linux Jenkins jobs which build and statically analyze FileArb
• Windows Jenkins jobs which build and statically analyze FileArb
• 4 commands to build binary filearb on Linux with Clang
• 4 commands to build executable FileArb.exe on Windows with Visual Studio 2022
• Thanks to

FileArb command line usage

FileArb v1.1.0 - Creates arbitrarily large text files or binary files.
Optional suffixes for --bytes arguments: b or B, k or K, m or M, and g or G.

Usage:
   filearb create-binary-file
      --target=<DirectoryPath>
      --bytes=<NumberOfBytes>
      [--random-bytes]
   filearb create-binary-files
      --target=<DirectoryPath>
      --directories=<NumberOfDirectories>
      --files=<NumberOfFiles>
      --bytes=<BytesPerFile>
      [--random-bytes]
      [--parallel]
      [--quiet]
   filearb create-text-file
      --target=<DirectoryPath>
      --lines=<LinesPerFile>
      --characters=<CharactersPerLine>
      [--random-letters]
   filearb create-text-files
      --target=<DirectoryPath>
      --directories=<NumberOfDirectories>
      --files=<FilesPerDirectory>
      --lines=<LinesPerFile>
      --characters=<CharactersPerLine>
      [--random-letters]
      [--parallel]
      [--quiet]

FileArb program modes

create-binary-file

filearb create-binary-file
   --target=<TargetDirectoryPath>
   --bytes=<NumberOfBytes>
   [--random-bytes]

create-binary-file creates in a specified --target directory a file named binaryfile.bin containing --bytes number of binary 0 bytes.

Console output for filearb create-binary-file --target=. --bytes=2G on Linux:

Console output for FileArb.exe create-binary-file --target=. --bytes=2G on Windows:

--random-bytes can be specified to create a binary file containing pseudorandom bytes sampled from std::random_device.

Here are the contents of one potential random binary file after running filearb create-binary-file --target=C:\FileArbTesting --bytes=64 --random-bytes:

create-binary-files

filearb create-binary-files
   --target=<TargetDirectoryPath>
   --directories=<NumberOfDirectories>
   --files=<NumberOfFiles>
   --bytes=<BytesPerFile>
   [--random-bytes]
   [--parallel]
   [--quiet]

create-binary-files creates in a specified --target directory a specified number of --directories each containing a specified number of --files each containing --bytes number of 0 bytes or [--random-bytes].

Console output for filearb create-binary-files --target=. --directories=5 --files=3 --bytes=1024 --random-bytes --parallel on Linux:

create-text-file

filearb create-text-file
   --target=<TargetDirectoryPath>
   --lines=<LinesPerFile>
   --characters=<CharactersPerLine>
   [--random-letters]

create-text-file creates a text file in a specified --target directory containing --lines number of lines each containing --characters number of 0 ASCII characters per line or random capital letters if --random-letters is specified.

Console output for filearb create-text-file --target=. --lines=5 --characters=10 on Linux:

create-text-files

filearb create-text-files
   --target=<DirectoryPath>
   --directories=<NumberOfDirectories>
   --files=<FilesPerDirectory>
   --lines=<LinesPerFile>
   --characters=<CharactersPerLine>
   [--random-letters]
   [--parallel]
   [--quiet]

filearb create-text-files creates at a specified --target directory a specified number of --directories each containing a specified number of --files containing 0 ASCII characters or --random-letters.

Console output for filearb create-text-files --target=target_dir --directories=5 --files=3 --lines=3 --characters=64 --random-letters --parallel on Linux:

FileArb code structure as it appears in Visual Studio Code on Linux

FileArb code structure as it appears in Visual Studio 2022 on Windows

Linux Jenkins jobs which build and statically analyze FileArb

Windows Jenkins jobs which build and statically analyze FileArb

4 commands to build binary filearb on Linux with Clang

git clone https://github.com/NeilJustice/FileArb
cd FileArb && mkdir Release && cd Release
CXX=clang++ cmake .. -GNinja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
sudo cmake --build . --target install

Resulting binary /usr/local/bin/filearb:

4 commands to build executable FileArb.exe on Windows with Visual Studio 2022

git clone https://github.com/NeilJustice/FileArb
cd FileArb
cmake . -G"Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=C:\bin
cmake --build . --config Release --target install

Resulting executable C:\bin\FileArb.exe:

Thanks to

brandmark.io for FileArb's logo