TextTools Release 2

of 15-May-96. Copyright (c) 1996 by Rune Berg. All rights reserved.


Introduction - Terms - Tools Summary - Package Contents - Changes - Important Notes - Feedback


INTRODUCTION

TextTools is a collection of ASCII text filters and other goodies. Many of the programs process text-format tables, and offer powerful and unique functionality.

All TextTools programs run from the command line, or from batch files.


TERMS

All TextTools programs and documentation are Copyright (c) 1996 by Rune Berg. All rights reserved.

TextTools Release 2 is Freeware. It may be freely distributed and used for non-commercial purposes only. It may be included on Shareware/Freeware/PD CD-ROM collections, though. It must not be modified in any way, and must be distributed in its entirety.

Please note that future TextTools releases may well be Shareware.

Disclaimer: Rune Berg disclaims all warranties as to this software and its documentation, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, functionality or data integrity or protection.


TOOLS SUMMARY

Table-oriented programs
tcols project and transform table columns
trows select table rows that fulfill given conditions
tsort sort table on result of projection/transform
tand print table entries present in two files
tjoin database-style join of two tables

Programs for copying part of files
first copy first n lines of file
last copy last n lines of file
lines copy specifically numbered lines of file
middle copy middle part of file

Other text filters
eol convert between DOS and UNIX end-of-line styles
xtabs expand tabs to spaces
itabs insert tabs in place of spaces

Miscallenous
lsx list directory contents grouped on file basename
sum sum up integers in file
acho echo with ANSI codes for colour etc.
closure compute closure of graph of text nodes
create create empty files
dump dump file contents in hex/decimal/octal


PACKAGE CONTENTS

The readme.txt file tells you to start with doc_html/txttools.htm

The doc_html directory contains documentation for the TextTools programs.

The exe.dos contains the DOS executables.


CHANGES

All documentation has been overhauled. Many small and not-so-small errors have been corrected.

All documentation is now in the form of HTML files. You're reading the top-level file now.

As for the programs themselves:

PROGRAMVERSIONCHANGES SINCE RELEASE 1
acho 1.01 None.
closure 1.01 None.
create 1.10 Added -w option: warn if file exists, don't create, continue.
Added -q option: quiet mode, suppress creation reports and warnings.
dump 1.10 Added -no option: don't show offsets.
Added -nh option: don't show "dump of ..." header.
eol 1.02 None.
first 1.01 None.
itabs 1.01 None.
last 1.01 None.
lines 1.00 None.
lsx 1.10 Added -r option: show read-only files in red, others in green.
middle 1.02 None.
sum 1.02 None.
tand 1.02 None.
tjoin 1.02 None.
tcols 1.20 Added nl function: append "\n" string.
Added prf function: print formatted (minimal printf).
Added tr function: trim leading and trailing blanks.
trows 1.20 Added pattern matching operator ~ supporting full regular expressions.
+ same as for tcols.
tsort 1.20 Same as for tcols.
xtabs 1.01 None.


IMPORTANT NOTES

This is just the second release. Though well tested, expect some bugs.

All included executables run in real-mode, and don't use expanded or extended memory. Thus, some of the programs have limited capacity.

All included executables are debug builds, i.e. they're compiled with asserts etc., to help in catching bugs. This means they run a little slower than they really could.


FEEDBACK

Ok, hope you find these programs useful. Any feedback is much appreciated.

E-mail to:

runeberg@telepost.no

Snail-mail to:

Rune Berg
Steinspranget 44
1156 Oslo
Norway

Cheers,
- Rune


End of document