Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 10:46:18 +1200 From: physmsa AT cantua DOT canterbury DOT ac DOT nz (Mr M S Aitchison) Subject: ANNOUNCE: tail, choice, version To: opendos AT delorie DOT com, caldera-opendos AT caldera DOT com Message-id: <199709302246.KAA24110@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz> Precedence: bulk > I have put choice, tail and version in > ftp://ftp.bird.org/pub/opendos I have written some utilities (some of which are "drop in" replacements for OpenDOS external commands). The first ones that are available are: CHOICE - can be used in batch files to select actions at run-time; a replacement for the OpenDOS/MSDOS command of the same name; my version also allows the selection to go to an environment variable or a file, or used to change directories. It also has some *very* powerful full-screen menuing facilities... try the included MENU.BAT program to see what can be done. TAIL - outputs just the last few lines or bytes of a file. With the /F option it can wait for data to be added to a file; this works well with mutitasking or network filesystems where (for example) a log file is written to in such a way that it is closed and re-openned when more is added, but it can work in other situations as well (I have had mixed success, mainly due to sharing conflicts and limitations in what DOS understands about updates in a multitasking situation... I would like feedback on successes/failures here!) VERSION - similar to the command that comes with the PNW part of Novell DOS and OpenDOS, but my version uses different checksum methods (advantages and disadvantages), and can recognise a wider range of version and copyright signatures in programs and text files. (programs soon to be released: UPTIME, XDIR, XCOPY, FDISK, MORE, HELP, RENDIR, TOUCH, XDEL, ATTRIB, SPACE, UNCOPY, MOVE, FORMAT, TREE) They have the following features: * Free! (See the .DOC file in the zip archives for the conditions of use and redistribution - basically it is as free and open as I can make it.) If anybody wants the complete sources contact me; I don't include normally everything because it makes the archives unneccessarrily big (:-). * Uses OpenDOS features where appropriate, but can be used with any DOS. I test them with the latest OpenDOS and Win95 and sometimes OS/2 and older DOSes... I welcome any bug reports, and these first releases have to be considered "beta", but I think they should run under any DRDOS, OpenDOS, MSDOS, PCDOS and FreeDOS. (There are a few exceptions: the uptime program that will be released later will not work properly under early DRDOS versions; the TAIL command with devices other than CON will not work properly under Win95 due to a bug in Win95). * They all use a common set of environment variables and (as far as possible) command options... SET _ANSI=Y to use ANSI colours, cursor positioning, etc. SET CLASS1 or CLASS2 to Ignore, Warn, Error, Abort, or Reboot! to control how the program reacts to "normally fatal" and "non-fatal" errors; for example if you use /L=file to list to a given file but it cannot be written this is normally a fatal error, whereas trying to tail all *.BAT files when non exist is only a class 2 error which would normally give a warning "no files match *.BAT". SET LFN=N overrides the automatic detection of long filename support and uses short names only SET COMPATIBILITY=NWDOS (or MSDOS, Win95, etc) forces various formatting options (and other choices) to conform to the given standard. SET NOCHAR=text (normally "N" or "No" or "False" or "0" plus a few non-English words will be taken as "no" when a Yes/No question is encountered) this lets you set you own letter/word. SET YESCHAR=text (ditto but for "Yes") SET SWITCHAR=text Normally the OpenDOS system call for reporting the character that signals a command line "switch" option is used - this overrides that (e.g. in some versions of DOS that don't support the system call). By default it is "/" but even then "-" will be also accepted when it isn't ambiguous. SET CMDLINE=text In case you have a command line longer than 127 characters. SET (name of command)=/options allows you to set default switches for the command, e.g. SET VERSION=/Verbose/A will assume these options every time you use the version command. The commands take notice of the country options for default date format, etc (but will accept month names whether the day or the month is first. * The VERSION command (mine or Novell's) will report the version numbers in these programs (because I haven't PKLITE'd them; okay that makes them a bit bigger than OpenDOS commands of the same name, but a few dozen Kb isn't too much of a problem, is it?) * The built-in help screen (using /?) is reasonably clear (but use the .doc file for more information - I always like to keep the built-in help down to one screen. The format varies in subtle ways if you have ANSI loaded or are redirecting the output, as a diagnostic. * As far as possible, the commands are dewsigned to be "BBS-friendly" and Desqview-aware (as well and TaskMax/Mgr-aware and Windoze-aware). The "choice" program in the full-screen menu mode, for example, when function keys are accepted can recognise function keys from VT100, ADM, TVI, QVT, Data General and Wyse terminals as well as PC's in normal mode or running most terminal emulation software. * The "standard error" is used for warning/error messages so redirected output still results in a message on the console. Output to the printer (with the /L option of TAIL, etc) goes to the "standard printer" file handle (but you can specify a different printer using /LPT2 or /L:somefile). * Commands aren't case-sensitive. I use capital letters in documentation to highlight keywords (or the *required* part of options, e.g. you can use /V or /v or /Verbose or /verbosity as an option). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Aitchison, Physics & Astronomy \_ Phone : +64 3 3642-947 a.h. 3371-225 University of Canterbury, (/' Callsign: ZL3TQE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------