Method 1: The product was obtained by mechanical grinding of 4-aminobenzamide and 3,5-dichloro­salicylaldehyde in a 1:1 stoichiometric ratio (1 mmol each, 136 mg; 191 mg) by adding 2–3 ml of methanol (drop by drop addition) solvent for 30 min and the resulting product was washed with hexane 3–4 times to remove unwanted by-products. The product salicylideneaniline was finally purified by crystallization from methanol and characterized by 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR, FT–IR (Figs. S24–26) and finally confirmed by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. We followed the same procedure for the synthesis of compound B and compound C and confirmed their structures by 1H-NMR and single-crystal XRD.