RunSince Documentation
22 October 1992


Purpose


If you reboot your machine to use different configurations (or for
any other reason) RunSince can make the booting process faster by
allowing you to specify how often to run certain programs.  



Usage


RunSince was designed to allow your existing command lines to be
adapted easily.  For example:


Example autoexec.bat excerpt

...

@echo off
c:\cpav\bootsafe c: d:
c:\cpav\cpav c: /s /p /a
c:\nu\ndd c: d: /quick 
c:\nu\speedisk c: d: /ff /b 

...


With this autoexec.bat file one could turn the machine on in the
morning and come back after lunch.  I was faced with this situation
and my solution was RunSince. 

I did not want to have yet-another-tsr (ala cron) that did these
rather important tasks when appropriate nor did I want to complicate
the situation by adding copious IF statements and other kludges to
the autoexec.bat file, and I did not want to have to alter the
command lines (much).  The net result is shown below.


'RunSince'd autoexec.bat excerpt

...

@echo off
runsince c:\cpav\bootsafe c: d:		/1 day
runsince c:\cpav\cpav c: /s /p /a	/10 days
runsince c:\nu\ndd c: d: /quick 	/4 hours
runsince c:\nu\speedisk c: d: /ff /b    /5 days

...


Now bootsafe runs once a day, cpav runs every 10 days, ndd runs every
4 hours and speedisk runs every 5 days no matter how many times I
reboot.  This passes for nirvana.

Time units supported are the same units most of us use every day:
d[ays] h[ours] m[inutes] s[econds] (the stuff between brackets is not
required though allowed).  No support for star-dates although I must
admit I had considered it. However no standard for star-dates exists
and rather than invent the de-facto standard, I opted to let
technology stand still.


'Command'.RUN


Runsince creates a file with the base-name of the executable with the
extension of '.run' (ie: the basename of 'command.com' is 'command',
the resultant file name would ne 'command.run')  on either a) the
default disk in the current directory if no drive\path is specified
on the command or b) the drive\path specified on the command line.

The '.RUN' file contains three things, a string representing a time_t
value of the execution time, a string description (ctime format) of
that time, and the command line used at the time of execution.

One may delete these files if one wishes the values to be reset.


Online Help

For a somewhat terse explaination of the above, type 'runsince help'
and the following will jog your memory.


RunSince 'online' help
...


usage: runsince [d:][path]program [args...] /n [days|hours|minutes|SECONDS]
example: 'runsince c:\virus\viruscan c: d: /all /fix /5 days'

The '/n [days|...]' must follow all program arguments.
No intervening spaces are allowed between '/' and 'n'.
The default time interval is seconds. Abbreviations such as
'min' or 'sec' are supported.  Maximum of 20 args to 'program'.

A file will be created in the either the same drive/directory
specifed for the 'program' argument if a '[d:]' and/or '[path]'
are specified, or in the current directory on the default drive if
not specified, that contains a time_t value, a string description
(ctime format) and the command line used at the time of last
invocation of 'runsince' with this 'program' as an argument.

example: above, a file is created in 'c:\virus'
with the name 'viruscan.run' that contains:

704092095
Last run on Fri Apr 24 00:08:15 1992
Command line 'c:\virus\viruscan c: d: /all /fix'

...


ShareWare


Admittedly I created this for my own use, but if you find this useful
please be fair.  I removed all annoyances as a courtesy.  


Donations of $5 appreciated to:

Terrance A. Davis
TDS Inc.
Suite 218
1540 Thomas Lake Pointe Road
Eagan MN 55122
USA