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MRBackup Version 2.4 A Hard Disk Backup Utility for the Commodore Amiga August 1988 Mark R. Rinfret Introduction This document describes a program, named MRBackup (pronounced M R Backup, not Mister Backup :-), which will allow you to backup the files on an Amiga hard disk drive to floppy disk media. I wrote MRBackup primarily out of my own need. I also saw it as a means for learning more about programming the Amiga. Please take the time to read this document carefully. There are some fine points ("Now THOSE are some fine points!") about the program that you won't want to miss. MRBackup is reasonably flexible, allowing you to back up individual directories, directory trees or a whole disk. You can backup from one directory hierarchy and restore to another. Incremental backups can be performed based on file modification dates. MRBackup also uses, at your discretion, the "archive bit" feature added with release 1.2 of the WorkBench. Just for fun, MRBackup also talks. Though this is may seem frivolous, the speech capability provides a method for alerting you that a new output disk is required for formatting. MRBackup is not fast. When choosing a method for packing the backup data, a fast-scan approach with specialized backup directory structure was considered. However, there is an inherent danger in committing multiple files to a specialized file system which can only be accessed through a solitary piece of software. I decided to maintain the AmigaDOS file system structure which has a great deal of integrity and allows the backup media to be accessed by standard software. When I do it again, I'll probably go with the specialized approach - the current method is just too darned slow. The user should take a serious and organized approach to his/her backup methods, however. I highly recommend that backup listings be kept in a safe place (I use a 3-ring binder) and backup floppies be stored safe from magnetic damage or other hazards (like spilled coffee - argh!). A truly committed individual will backup his entire disk once a month, once a week and "areas of interest" once a day (default). MRBackup attempts to economize on output media usage by using Lempel-Ziv data compression/decompression (at the cost of time). This is an option which can be enabled/disabled via menu selection. The compression routine used was lifted from the Un*x "compress" program but has been adapted to employ buffering and native AmigaDOS I/O. Operation To use MRBackup, click on the program icon or type MRBackup at the CLI prompt. A new window will open in which you will see a STOP sign, some other gadgetry, and a couple of embedded windows. If you click with the right mouse button and drag from left to right across the menu bar, you'll see the various program menus which control MRBackup's operation. Pathname Specifications Window The Pathname Specifications window is where you tell MRBackup where data is coming from and going to. It is important to note that the meanings of "Home Path" and "Backup Path" remain the same for a backup or a restore operation. That is, the "Home Path" always refers to the files' normal "home" and "Backup Path" always refers to the location where the copies are kept. The "Home Path" may be the name of any disk directory or volume or file-structured logical name. The "Backup Path" must specify the name of a floppy disk device if formatting is enabled. Otherwise, it may specify any directory, volume or file- structured logical name. If you try to backup/restore from/to SER:, PRT:, etc., you shouldn't get far. If you do, I'd like to hear about it. I've always wanted to be able to restore from PRT: :-). The "Listing Path" refers to the destination of a detailed listing of the contents of the backup floppies and may specify the printer (PRT:, default) or a file. The listing is an option which may be enabled/disabled via a Flags menu selection. The "Exclude Filter", if specified, is the name of a file which contains lines describing files which should not be backed up. The default pathname for this file is "S:MRBackup.xcld". Note that this pathname may be overridden in the initialization file, MRBackup.init. Any filename matching an entry in this list will be excluded from a backup. The exclude filter consists of file specifications, one per line, or comments (a line with a number sign - # - in column 1). Blank lines are ignored. Also, the specifications are case-insensitive. That is, "SYSTEM" and "system" are equivalent. It is important to note that the pathname specifications in the exclude filter are assumed to be RELATIVE to the home device. Everything up to and including the colon (:) in the Home Path specification should be omitted from the exclude filter specifications. Examples: # Exclude all object files *.o # Exclude all files beginning with "System" system* # Exclude all ".info" files *.info # Exclude the "include" directory and all subdirectories include # Exclude any file ending in a period followed by one character *.? The "Compress Filter" provides a function similar to the exclude filter. It declares the name of a file which contains filename patterns of files which should not be compressed during backup when the Compress Files option is enabled. The default name of this filter is "S:MRBackup.cflt". It has been found that certain files will actually expand when subjected to the Lempel- Ziv compression algorithm employed by MRBackup. Files which fall into this category include archives created by the ARC and Zoo programs. Also, files previously compressed should not be compressed a second time. Other files which exhibit this behavior included several types of graphics files including certain IFF ILBM files and GIF files. There are three built-in specifications. They are: *.arc Files created by the ARC archiver *.zoo Files created by the Zoo archiver *.Z Files created by MRBackup compression or the standalone "compress" utility. Other specifications that you might want to include are: *.GIF Graphics Interchange Format files (Compuserve) *.IFF IFF files (assuming you use this convention) Naturally, in order to fully utilize this feature, you will have to adopt some naming conventions for files of this category. The "Preferences" pathname allows you to specify the name of a file holding your current MRBackup preferences. You can customize the operation of MRBackup through the use of an initialization file. When you first run MRBackup, it looks for the file named MRBackup.init, first in the current directory, then in the S: directory. Each line in the file consists of an option setting, of the form: OPTION = VALUE or a comment. Comment lines may begin with any of the following "special" characters: #, !, ;, $, %, & or *. A sample initialization file is included on the next page. It illustrates the use of all possible parameter settings. # This is the MRBackup preferences/initialization file. # This file is comprised of parameter settings and comment lines. # Parameter setting lines are of the form: # <keyword> = <value> # where <keyword> names the parameter to be set and <value> is # either a boolean (YES/NO) or a string value. # Comments may begin with any of these special characters: # '#!;$%&*'. # Leading blanks are discarded and empty lines are ignored. # Here are your current default settings: # Enable/Disable Lempel-Ziv file compression or decompression. compression = YES # Should MRBackup generate a paginated listing during backup? listing = YES # Should MRBackup talk to me? speech = YES # Are floppies to be formatted during backup? format = NO # Should MRBackup split large files across multiple floppies? bigfiles = YES # Should MRBackup set/use archive bits during backup/restore? archivebits = YES # What is the name of the home device/volume/directory? home = DH0:src/mrbackupv2.4 # What is the name of the backup device/volume/directory? backup = DF1: # What is the name of the listing device or file? list = mrbackup.list # What is the name of the exclude filter file? exclude = MRBackup.xcld # What is the name of the compression filter file? cfilter = S:MRBackup.cflt # Let MRBackup talk to me. speech = YES # Format each floppy targetted for output. format = YES # Do special processing for "big files". bigfiles = YES # Provide special handling of the "archive bit". archivebits = YES Backing Up a Disk The instructions that follow assume you are going to backup your hard disk, or a portion of it, to unformatted floppy diskettes. You may also move files from/to just about any file- structured volume or directory. Just remember to disable disk formatting to relax the Backup Path restrictions. To back up your hard disk, or a section of it, first get an indication of the size of the area with the Info command, "ls" (if you have it), List, etc. If you multiply the total number of bytes (blocks * 512) by 0.65, then divide by 800000, you should get a very rough estimate (probably high) of the number of floppy disks required to back up that area. The floppies selected for backup need not be preformatted, as MRBackup will format them as needed. You should be sure, however, that no valuable data exists on them since it will be destroyed by the formatting process, if formatting is enabled. Once your floppies are ready and stacked neatly within reach (get some labels and your favorite marker pen, too!), the fun begins. First, modify the pathname specifications according to your requirements. Normally, the "Home Path" would be the device name of your hard disk or a directory on it (e.g. DH0:) while the "Backup Path" would specify the device name of one of your floppy drives (e.g. DF0:). While earlier versions of MRBackup were pretty rigid in this regard, this version will allow you to specify ANY disk device name in either specification. PLEASE BE CAREFUL! Many users asked for this increased flexibility. Just be aware that it carries with it an increased risk that you now have more "opportunity" to burn yourself with improper pathname specifications. Finally, the listing path may be set to the printer device (PRT:) or to the name of a file on a hard drive or any available floppy drive not being used by the backup. The listing path will be ignored if you disable the Generate Listing option in the Flags menu. Make sure that you have set the desired options in the Flags menu, then select Backup from the Project menu. You will be prompted with a date requester. The default date value that appears is the "beginning of time", in Amiga terms. This causes all files to be considered for backup. If that is satisfactory, simply depress the RETURN key and the backup will commence. If you desire to change the date, edit the date value as necessary, using the standard Amiga conventions. Remember that to clear the gadget you may press right-Amiga-x. A null date value (all blanks) is allowed, should you want to backup all files in the home path, regardless of their creation dates. The minimum date value handled by this date requester is 01/01/78. The required date and time format is MM/DD/YY HH:MM:SS (24 hour clock), the time specification being optional. You will notice upward and downward pointing "arrows" above each date component. Clicking on the appropriate arrow will increment or decrement the respective portion of the date. Though the values normally will wrap around, not affecting adjacent date components, certain situations will arise where incrementing a day value may cause the month to increment (incrementing February 28 in a non-leap-year will yield March 31). There is also a "NOW" gadget. Though not too meaningful by itself, it provides a convenient way to "click in" dates like "yesterday". To do this, simply click on the "NOW" gadget, then click on the uparrow gadget above the day field of the date. Once the date has been entered, the rest is fairly automatic. You will be prompted immediately for a floppy disk. Insert it into the floppy drive that you specified in the backup path and the disk requester will be satisfied. Should you want to abort, simply hit the CANCEL gadget in the requester. Also, you may abort the backup process at any time by hitting the STOP gadget which appears in the top left area of the screen. This gadget is checked prior to each block write operation, so be patient if it does not respond immediately. Use the STOP gadget with caution - it really lives up to its name! As each floppy disk is filled, you should promptly label it. If formatting is enabled, MRBackup automatically generates volume names of the form: Backup MM-DD-YY.<sequence number> Also to be noted is the fact that the files on the backup media retain the creation/modification date, comments (FileNotes) and protection bits of their counterparts on the home device. You will find that the Amiga's multitasking environment shines when using this program. For those long-haul backups, get everything started, then shove MRBackup's screen to the back and go start something useful. MRBackup will carry on without your watchful eye. When it needs a disk, the disk requester will pop out in front of everything and MRBackup will ask (out loud, if speech is enabled ) for another disk. Having something else to do will make the time pass faster. Restoring the Backups No, this isn't always the bad part. Backup and restore can also be useful when your hard disk is crowded and you have to "juggle" data around. The restoration process is quite similar, mechanically, to the backup process - it's just reversed. In addition, the meanings of the pathname specifications are altered somewhat. The "Home path" describes the destination for the restored files and, as with the backup process, may specify the hard drive only or a directory specification. The "Backup path" describes the file or files to be restored and thus may be defined down to the file level (1 file). Note that on a restore operation, the file creation date of the backup file is compared to its matching file (if it exists) on the home device. If the file on the home device is newer, the file will not be replaced. If this is desired, the file on the home device must be deleted first. A later version of this program will probably offer a "force" or "force with prompt" option. Menus This section provides a brief description of MRBackup's menus and their items. Operations Menu The Operations Menu provides access to MRBackup's major processing functions. They are: About This item gives a quick description of MRBackup's features and lists my address and phone numbers. Backup This command begins the backup process. You should first be sure that all Pathname Specifications and Flags menu settings are correct. Resume Backup This command allows you to backup your hard disk in stages or recover from an interruption, such as a power failure. Prior to "starting" each backup floppy, MRBackup writes information about its current internal state to a file named S:MRBackup.context. The first line of this file is the disk sequence number (1..n). The second line is the name of the first file to be written to the floppy. The third line is the backup "delta date". Subsequent lines are the names of files and directories in MRBackup's top-level file list. As long as the file specified in line 2 can be found, MRBackup should be able to resume your backup, even if changes have occurred since the original backup was interrupted. You may even edit the context file for special situations where you wish to backup a disjoint set of directories. Restore Restore allows you to recover files from backup floppies previously created with the Backup or Resume Backup commands. MRBackup will prompt you for floppy disks as they are needed. Note that there is no prescribed order for restoring floppy disks. Load Preferences This command reads your Pathname Specifications and Flag menu settings from a file named S:MRBackup.init. You would typically use this command to restore MRBackup's settings to your startup settings. Save Preferences This command writes the current Pathname Specifications and Flag menu settings to the file S:MRBackup.init. This allows you to establish MRBackup's default initialization parameters. MRBackup will attempt to make a copy of the current preferences to a file of the same name, but with an extension of ".bak". If the preferences name you have specified does not currently exist, MRBackup will inform you that it could not make a backup. Ignore the message in this case. Utilities The Utilities command provides a means for performing certain operations on select groups of files. It provides its own window and support gadgetry. The utilities provided and the means for accessing them are described in a later section of this document. PLEASE READ THE UTILITIES DOCUMENTATION CAREFULLY! Operation of these utilities is not entirely intuitive and there are certain operating characteristics that you must be aware of if you are to use them correctly. Also, these utilities do not attempt to be a replacement for the standard AmigaDos utilities. Rather, they are provided as a convenience for use while running MRBackup. Quit Alas - all good things must come to an end. As much fun as MRBackup is to use, you'll probably want to put it away once in a while :-). Flags Menu The Flags menu allows you to set or clear certain operating parameters (flags) which constrain MRBackup's operation. A flag is considered "set" if there is a checkmark to the left of its name in the Flags menu. Each time the item is selected it will toggle to the opposite of its current state. Compress Files This option, when set, allows files to be compressed during backup and decompressed when restoring. File compression can typically save from 35% to 60% of the original file size. Though this is more costly in terms of time, fewer floppies will be required to perform a backup. Also, in some cases, files which already contain data with a highly random distribution of values (graphics files, for instance) will actually start to expand when an attempt is made to compress them. MRBackup will detect this condition and abort compression on that file, copying it instead. Do Big Files Big files are files whose size exceeds the formatted capacity of a floppy diskette (1756 blocks). In order to backup big files, MRBackup must split them across two or more diskettes. In order to accomplish this, a special information file, MRBackup.bigfile, is written to each backup diskette containing a big file. MRBackup also requires another flag, Format Destination, to be set in order for big file backup to be attempted. If these conditions are not met, MRBackup will simply skip over the big file, reporting the event. Generate Listing This option causes MRBackup to list the contents of each backup diskette (created by the Backup command) to the file or device specified by the Listing Path in the Pathname Specifications window. Speak Setting the Speak flag allows MRBackup to talk to you. This is especially useful when doing backups. When a new floppy disk is required, MRBackup will call you for help (it's a pity the Amiga doesn't have a diskette jukebox feature). Format Destination This flag is normally set and tells MRBackup to format each floppy used for backup purposes. However, you may wish to disable this feature for special backups which you prefer to "refresh" by writing over previous versions of backed up files. Use Archive Bits A new feature, added with release 1.2 of the WorkBench, is an archive bit in each file's protection word. This bit is cleared whenever a file is modified and can be set by MRBackup when a file is backed up. When this option is enabled, files for which the archive bit is set will not be backed up. This gives you a very accurate method for backup selection if you're careful with your backup diskette library. Windows Menu The Windows menu allows you to reactivate windows which have been closed. Currently, the only window supported in this manner is the Pathname Specification window, which you may close once all pathname specifications have been made. Utilities Operation The MRBackup Utilities window is activated by selecting "Utilities" from the "Project" menu. The utilities provide a range of services which augment the power of MRBackup and lend convenience to its use. PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY! The proper operation of these utilities may run counter to what you expect and some of the features/capabilities are quite subtle. The first point to be noted is that these utilities are designed primarily to perform operations across directory or device boundaries, though the Compress and Decompress operations may be performed in a single directory and the Delete operation always works on a single directory. At the heart of the utilities' operation is a highly interactive file requester which supports the concept of "extended selection" (quite common on you-know-who's computer). With extended selection, you can select a subset of files listed for a given directory by holding down the SHIFT key during the selection process. This group of files may then be "fed" to the desired operation. I will discuss this in more detail later on. Now, let's get acquainted with the layout of the MRBackup Utilities window. If MRBackup isn't already running on your Amiga, fire him up and select the Utilities command from the Project menu. Refer to the screen while reading this document to maintain your orientation. The first thing you should have noticed when the MRBackup Utilities window was activated was that the Progress Window was resized, repositioned and brought to the front of the screen, obscuring the main window title. This is to allow MRBackup to report errors to you during the use of the utilities. Next, note the "close box" (rectangle with the dot in the middle) on the title bar of the MRBackup Utilities window. The utilities are exited by clicking in the close box. At that time, the Progress Window will also be put back where you had it (polite, huh?). The top-leftmost gadget is labeled "FileSpec". This gadget allows you to limit your file searches ("From" directory only) to only those files matching a given pattern. Normally, this pattern, if specified, will include the wildcard characters "*" and "?". For instance (and we're jumping ahead of ourselves a little), if you want to decompress a group of files, it is highly reccommended that you first enter the string "*.Z" into the FileSpec gadget. This limits visibility to only those files which end in ".Z" (the only files which can be decompressed). If you wanted to delete all object files, you would probably enter "*.o" into the FileSpec gadget. Get the picture? For those who are totally unfamiliar with wildcard (meta) characters, an asterisk (*) is used to represent any number of characters, while a question mark (?) represents exactly one character. Got the drift? Good. To the right of the FileSpec gadget is a teaser. This gadget, shaped to look like a combination hard drive/floppy drive unit, will eventually enable you to cycle through the available storage devices on your system. Right now, it just sits there and flashes at you if you click on it. Dumb! Below the FileSpec gadget are two triplets of gadgets, labeled "From" and "To". The "From" gadget is a device or directory pathname specification for the source of a group of files to be operated on. The "To" gadget specifies the device or directory which is the destination for these files (where appropriate). The funny looking things to the left of "From" and "To" (you probably thought they were hamburgers) are my feeble attempt at closed eyes. In the closed position, they indicate that the associated file list is inactive. In the open position (only one may be open at a time), they indicate that the associated file list is active. In this context, "active" means that a scan may be in progress or already completed. To the right of the "From" and "To" pathname gadgets are a couple of upward pointing arrows. These gadgets attempt to obtain the parent directory or device for the pathname currently displayed. For example, if the "From" gadget is currently displaying the pathname DH0:Src/Lib clicking on the arrow gadget will cause DH0:Src to be displayed, the file display box (big box at the bottom) will be cleared and a new file scan will be started. You should also note that the "eye" related to that gadget need not be open for this behavior to occur. The next string gadget (down) is labeled "Current File". Once you have selected a directory and list of files and have started processing them, the "Current File" gadget will display the name of the file that is currently being processed. Now we get to the good part. You see a big box with a white border in the center of the screen, with a couple of gadgets to the left named "All Files" and "Clear" and a skinny white box to the right, filled with a white bar, right? This is the heart of the file requester I mentioned earlier. You've probably used similar file requesters before. Though I wrote original code for this, I tip my hat to Charlie Smith (MicroSmiths) and Peter daSilva for their pioneering in this area. I borrowed heavily from their prior works. In discussing the operation of the file requester, I will be referring back to the previously described gadgets. In order to do something here, you first have to select one or more files to "do it to". This group of files is described by the "From" list. You can start a scan for this list by entering the desired starting path in the "From" pathname gadget and hitting the RETURN key or by clicking on the associated eyeball. If you have done this correctly, you should immediately note a bustle of activity as the disk is searched and the screen is updated. You should observe filenames appearing in the requester display box and the white bar in the box next to it (we'll call it the "slider") should start to shrink. Depending on the starting path you entered into the "From" gadget, you might notice that some of the filenames are displayed in white, while others are displayed in red. Those displayed in white are simple filenames, while those in red are the names of directories. If you want a good illustration of this, select FONTS: or DEVS: as the starting path. You should also note that the filenames appear in unsorted order. They will remain unsorted until you click on the slider. Now let's discuss the interactive and interruptible nature of the file requester. The normal human tendency is to start a scan, then sit back until some indication is given that the scan is complete, then start mucking with the list of files. Don't be so polite! You can do just about anything, short of clicking on those big boxes to the right (command buttons) that I haven't described yet. To select a file, position the mouse pointer over its name in the display box and click once. You should notice that the filename is now displayed in reverse video. This means that the file is selected. If you click the same file again (after a short pause), the file will revert to normal video (the unselected state - sort of like Rhode Island :-). If you wish to select multiple files, depress the SHIFT key (either one) prior to clicking the mouse. Otherwise, the previously selected file(s) will be deselected. If you wish to select ALL files, wait until the scan is complete, then click in the little box to the right of the "All Files" gadget. To clear all file selections, click in the little box to the right of the "Clear" gadget. You will notice that only 12 filenames can appear in the display box at any time. By using the slider, you can view/select other files in the list. You do this by "dragging" the slider bar - click the mouse on it and, while holding the mouse button down, drag the mouse pointer downward. When you let up, other filenames should be revealed (depending upon how many files are contained in the currently selected directory). The size of the slider bar is proportional to the number of files in the directory. If half of the files are visible, the bar will be one-half the size of the slider box. Also, note that if a scan is in progress, the file list will be resorted (case-insensitive) each time you click on the slider. To descend to deeper levels in the directory structure, you can either type a new name in the "From" gadget (the hard way) or you can double-click (two mouse clicks in rapid succession) any of the red (directory name) entries visible in the display box. A new scan will immediately be started even if the current scan is not complete. To go back up the directory tree, click the up-arrow gadget described earlier. Again, the current scan (if active) will be abandoned and a new one started at the next higher level. The preceding discussion has focused on the behaviour of the file requester when the "From" list is active. Though its behaviour for the "To" list is similar, there are some strong differences. First of all, the object of a "To" scan is to select a target DIRECTORY (not a file). You will observe that only directory pathnames appear in the display list when doing a "To" scan. Also, extended selection (via SHIFT key or the "All Files" gadget) is meaningless here and so it is not supported. You just use the "To" scan to locate a target directory. Once found, double-clicking on the directory name will cause it to be added to the "To" pathname. The interruptible nature of the file requester is also supported for this mode. Before getting to the processing options (Soon, I promise!), there is one other file requester behavior to note. If you start a scan for one list, then start a scan for the other list before the first one is complete, the partial results of the first scan will be abandoned. If the scan is allowed to complete, you may then activate the other list, do some navigating, then reactivate the other list with its eyeball. It will be redisplayed immediately without a re-scan. This may not be what you want, especially if both "From" and "To" lists are on floppies. To force a rescan, just position the mouse pointer into the appropriate "From" or "To" pathname gadget and press the RETURN key. OK, let's get back to those labeled buttons on the right. Those are the "command buttons" which tell MRBackup to start performing specific processing on the files you have selected. For all operations, the current file is displayed in the "Current File" gadget (how appropriate!). If an error occurs that MRBackup considers "tolerable", you will be prompted with a requester that will give you the choice of continuing or aborting. As each file is processed, its name is removed from the list and the display box is refreshed. When processing is complete, one of two things will happen. If there were errors, the display box will be left displaying the names of the files that were not processed. If all went well, a new scan will be started for the "From" list. Please note that no support currently exists for processing "nested" directories. Though you are allowed to select directory entries, the utilities won't descend to the next level and process files there. I hope to add support for nested levels at a later date. The description of the command buttons and their processing follows. Compress The selected files will be compressed, using the same Lempel-Ziv method used by the Backup command. Unlike the Backup command, however, files that don't compress properly are not copied instead. The file date and comment are maintained. The destination file will have the suffix ".Z" appended to its name. Also - and this is important! - if the "From" and "To" specifications are identical, the original file will be deleted if the compression is successful. This is standard Unix compress behavior which seems quite appropriate to me. Decompress The selected files will be decompressed. Note that only files whose names end in ".Z" will be processed, regardless of what may be in your selection list. It is a good idea to type ".Z" into the FileSpec gadget to limit visibility only to compressed files. This will prevent confusion. The file date and comment are maintained. Again, as with compress, if the "From" and "To" specifications are the same, the original file will be deleted after a successful decompression. Copy The selected files will be copied to the "To" directory, which MUST BE DIFFERENT than the "From" directory. File dates and comments are maintained. Rename The selected files are renamed (moved) to a new directory. The "From" and "To" directories MUST BE DIFFERENT. Also note that you cannot rename across device boundaries. If you wish to do this, use a combination of the Copy and Delete operations. Delete The selected files are deleted. Period. Please be careful with this as there is currently no "last chance" prompt prior to the operation. SetArcBit The AmigaDOS "archive bit" will be set for all selected files. This could be used to inhibit the backup of certain files when the "Use Archive Bits" flag is set. ClrArcBit The AmigaDOS "archive bit" will be cleared for all selected files. This would assure that certain files would be backed up when the "Use Archive Bits" flag is set. Another use for this operation is to "unmark" files that were marked as archived during a failed backup operation. This would be done before the "Resume Backup" command is used. There's room for lots more stuff here, but the usual lack of time keeps me from getting them in this release. I would like to add a MakeDir command and possibly add an "Execute" command button which would fire a command off to a CLI. Also nice would be some running statistics (file count, bytes in/out, etc.) during file processing. Support for nested directories is next on the agenda. Please give me your feedback on your impressions and any suggestions you might have. Warranties and Support There are no warranties, either expressed or implied, with regard to the use of this program. You didn't pay for it (did you?), so how's you gonna' get you money back (sic, sic, sic)? Seriously, folk, I've tested this beastie pretty thoroughly (I USE it!), but you know how things go. There may be a bugaboo or two lurking about. Please exercise it a little before committing your life (your precious data) to its care. As for support, I will do my best to respond to bug reports for as long as I have an Amiga in working condition. I will only support the most recent version, so please know your version number if you call. Several people have suggested that I should have made this a shareware product, if not a commercial one. I don't really think that shareware works, and it really was not my intention to make money with this program. I can see in retrospect, however, that there was a need for such a utility and that with a little more work (OK, a lot of work!), I could probably have had a minor financial success. However, by my standards, that would have required a lot more effort and commitment than I had to give at the time. MRBackup will have to be a lot faster (and have more features) to qualify as a commercial product. Your calls and letters have been extremely gratifying and all the incentive I've needed to continue to steal a couple hours here and there to continue making improvements. If anyone wants to talk a deal for some reasonably priced custom software, however, I'm all ears. Surpisingly, several users of MRBackup have made monetary contributions above the $2.00 I've asked for disk and postage. I would like to publicly thank them by including their names in this "MRBackup Roll of Honor" (order by amount contributed): John Sauter, Merrimack, NH <-- From my home state! Don Estok, USCG, Kodiak, AK <-- Classy letter, Don! Milt Very, Oakdale, CA <-- Thanks, Very! (much) Paul Coene, Rochester, NY Tony Koen, Hutchinson, KS Robert Farrel, Tivoli, NY Ralph Watson, Chesterfield, SC Ray Hulinsky, Lincoln, NE Roll of honor members will receive special notice (unsolicited/free updates, in some cases) of new MRBackup releases and other PD stuff that I may find the time to write. All MRBackup users will get a reasonable response to bug reports and feature suggestions. You are not expected to contribute, and I will not hold you in disregard if you call with a problem though you are a non-contributing user - I'll be grateful. Constructive user feedback is a programmer's best friend. Permissions This program is contributed to the public domain, as a token of gratitude for the many wonderful programs I have received through the same channels. Feel free to enhance, destroy, sell, distribute or otherwise benefit from the legal use of this program. I would love to hear from those of you who find MRBackup either useful or useless (with specific criticisms in the latter case). If you make any enhancements (there's room for PLENTY), please share them with me and the rest of the world. I can be reached as: mrr@amanpt1.ZONE1.COM ...rayssd!galaxia!amanpt1!mrr or Mark R. Rinfret 348 Indian Avenue Portsmouth, RI 02871 401-846-7639 (home) 401-849-8900 (work) Changes This section lists changes, in reverse chronological order, as they have appeared in subsequent releases of MRBackup. I have attempted to be thorough, but may have missed a few key items. Version 2.4 Version 2.3 beta got very limited distribution and there was no 2.4 beta. Just before I was ready to release 2.3, I got a few crank phone calls (just kidding!) complaining about the "compression/expansion thing". It seems that some files were actually growing larger when MRBackup tried to compress them! That sounds a lot like me when I go on a diet! Version 2.4 now has logic to detect this condition and abort file compression when it occurs. As I implemented this "reactive" solution, which could be very costly, time-wise, if many files exhibited this behavior, I realized that it would be nice to have a "preventive" solution as well. The solution is a new support file, MRBackup.cflt (or a name of your choosing) which specifies files that are not to be compressed. Your responsibility is to name files in a consistent manner that can be matched by a filename pattern. Fair enough? I got an e-mail message from C. Harald Koch at U. of Toronto, requesting me to relax the requirement that the backup path had to be the name of a disk device. He wanted to do backups over an Ethernet link. I wish I had such "problems"! I've honored the request and say "thanks" to "chk" for pushing me into it. The backup path is now only required to be a disk device name if the disk formatting option is enabled and you are doing a backup. I've also relaxed the restrictions on the home path. If you've ever designated a disk file as the Listing Path, you've probably gotten a non-fatal error which informed you that the file could not be accessed. Of course not - it was open for output. Past versions of MRBackup attempted to head off this error but lacked the "smarts" to do it well. This version of MRBackup converts your listing path specification into a fully qualified pathname, then adds it to the Exclude Filter list. You shouldn't get any more interruptions from this problem. I've made some nice changes to Load Preferences and Save Preferences. Save Preferences now generates comments interleaved with your current settings. The comments explain the general format of the file and each option line. Load Preferences (which is automatically invoked when you start MRBackup) allows several new special characters to indicate a comment line. It also ignores leading blanks on any line. If you're replacing a previous version of MRBackup, It is recommended that you use Save Preferences immediately upon running MRBackup to generate a new preferences file (MRBackup.init). This version of MRBackup uses SIMPLE_REFRESH windows for all but the Progress Window. This should cut down quite a bit on chip RAM usage. Bugs The only known bug in this version of MRBackup is that you will lose about 64 bytes of system memory with each invocation of MRBackup. The problem is due to poor housekeeping on my part, I assume, and I'm tracking down the problem but haven't nailed it yet. I don't think it's serious enough to warrant a delay in the release of this version. There is a screen update anomoly which I'm not convinced is MRBackup's fault. When running with DMouse, V1.09, I've noticed that my windows occaisionally get trashed (they don't update properly). I also noticed this with some WorkBench windows, so I'm inclined to believe that DMouse might have something to do with it. I haven't investigated the problem, but I believe that there are options in DMouse which will correct the situation. PLEASE! If you discover problems with MRBackup, let me know! I want to know about and eliminate them as quickly as possible, but your feedback is vital. When you're stealing a few hours a week from a crowded schedule to hack on something like this, there isn't a whole lot of time left for testing. I try to be thorough but don't always succeed. Help me out! Version 2.3 (beta) The file decompression routine (invoked by the Restore command) was not clearing its status variable. As a result, prior errors detected by either file compression or decompression would be picked up by subsequent decompression operations. This bug has been eliminated. The Save Preferences command was saving the Compress option incorrectly. This is fixed in version 2.3. The date routines used by MRBackup have undergone a thorough overhaul. Special thanks to Thad Floryan for his DateStamp-to- Julian date conversion algorithm. The previous lower limit of 03/01/84 has been removed. The context saving routines (which support the Resume Backup command) were working incorrectly in some cases. This problem has been fixed. A new Utilities menu has been added. This menu provides all sorts of file maintenance services, including individual file compression/decompression, copying, renaming, etc. Bugs: Compress will, on occaision, create a destination file which is larger than the original. The last reported occurrence of this was with IFF ILBM files (thanks, John Hopf). I haven't investigated the problem yet. If I do fix it, it will probably involve something like this: Compress the file Is it bigger? -> yes -> Delete and copy This could get quite time consuming for a large run of files which exhibit this behavior. One alternative would be to have a list of "compression excludes", similar to the current exclusion list. All files matching the specifications in the list would not be compressed. Another approach would be to insert sampling code in the compression routine which would be smart enough to decide early on in the compression that things were not going well. I'm thinking... Version 2.2 MRBackup now searches the current directory for MRBackup.init upon startup. This allows you to have custom backup preferences for separate projects which are automatically found if you start MRBackup using the CLI interface from the directory containing the file MRBackup.init. Prior to this release, the specification of a new listing path caused the listing to be immediately rewritten. This was not a GOOD THING since your old listing file could be destroyed before you got a chance to select a new name. Now, MRBackup uses append access when testing the listing pathname for accessibility. It still rewrites the file once the backup has started, however. I've added a few more messages to greet you when MRBackup is first started. Most people who have had trouble with MRBackup did not understand the purpose of the file change delta date ("since date") requested when a backup was started. They typically would let it default, then not understand why more files weren't backed up. I have changed the default to include all files. This is probably more useful, especially with the new archive bits feature. Version 2.1 Added the "archive bits" capability. Fixed an error in the file exclusion list processing algorithm. While this problem seems to have drawn little attention, the previous algorithm did not properly handle file specifications involving nested directory components. File comments and protection bits now are saved/restored along with the file date. A new command, Resume Backup, plus a new method for saving "context" information, has been implemented. Version 2.0 New User Interface MRBackup has undergone a major facelift. It now has its own screen and color palette and newly designed menus and gadgetry. All of this is due to my use of PowerWindows 2.0 from Inovatronics, a very worthwhile tool for Intuition programming. You will notice some new gadgetry on the screen. I've added a "fuel gauge" which indicates the "fullness" of the output floppy. There's a new error count gadget which tracks total errors encountered and a "Current Backup Volume Name" gadget which keeps you informed as to which disk you're currently archiving to or restoring from. The Pathname Specifications window has a close box which will make the window go away. A new menu, Windows, has an item Pathnames which will reopen the window for you. A new command, Save Preferences, allows you to save your current pathname specs and flags to the preferences file (S:MRBackup.init). The Flags menu has been totally redone. This menu previously consisted of item pairs (<feature>/No <feature> - pretty dumb, I must admit - I think I was intrigued by mutual exclusion at the time). The new Flags menu just consists of check-marked items. If an item is checked, the feature is enabled. Improved Error Handling This is usually the hardest task in any programming chore and usually gets the least attention. Previous versions of MRBackup were no exception. Version 2.0, however, has come a long way in this direction, especially in the area of recoverability. A new requester has been introduced which lists your recovery (or abort) options when certain errors have been detected. Most significantly, new context-saving code has been added which will allow you to restart a backup disk from its beginning, should a non-recoverable output error occur. Currently, this context information is saved in memory. I would like to save it to a file on the system disk. This, coupled with a new command (Resume Backup), would allow recovery even from a power failure. Increased Flexibility Previous versions of MRBackup were fairly rigid with regard to home and backup path specifications. Version 2.0 allows ANY disk device to be referenced in either location. On systems with dual floppy disks, you can even backup from floppy to floppy! MRBackup now allows you to suppress formatting of the backup disk. This allows you to "freshen" a previously created backup set. Though this option should be used with care, it does speed things up and enhances MRBackup's partial backup capability. Big File Handling This is truly a last-minute item! I personally don't have a file big enough to require this, so I didn't address the problem initially. However, enough users have requested this that I took a stab at it. "Big" files, according to MRBackup, are files which are larger than the formatted capacity of the output media. Iff (sic) you enable the "Do Big Files" and "Format Destination" Flag menu items, MRBackup will split big files across multiple floppy disks. If these options are not enabled, MRBackup will just complain that the file is too big to back up and go on. Some of you will probably think that the method used to do this is somewhat kludgy, but it's consistent with my approach to total AmigaDOS compatibility. When backing up a big file, a special information file, MRBackup.bigfile, is written to the output disk. The information file contains stuff like the file name, the "chunk number" (which piece of the file is this?), the chunk size, and a flag which indicates whether this is the last chunk. This information is used by the restore operation to insure that the file chunks get reassembled in the correct order. In order to test this, I had to write a program to create a big file (slightly larger than 1 floppy disk), archive it and restore it, then compare the two files. To do all this, I had to first clean house on my 20 MB hard drive! The big file backup appears to work OK. I think it could use some more testing, however, and would encourage you to test drive it before you commit to it. Index "All Files" gadget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 13 "Clear" gadget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 13 "Current File" gadget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 14 "From" gadget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 "NOW" gadget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 "To" gadget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Archive bit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 15 archive bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Arrow gadget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Backing Up a Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Backup Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 5, 6, 7 Big files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Chunk number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Chunk size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Command buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13, 14 Comment lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Compress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 14 Compress Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Compression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Creation/modification date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Date and time format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Date requester . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Decompress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 15 Decompression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Disk sequence number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Do Big Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Exclude file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Exclude Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Extended selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 File display box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 File requester . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 FileSpec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Flags Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Format Destination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 10 Generate Listing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Home Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 6, 7 Initialization file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Initialization parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Lempel-Ziv . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Listing Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 6, 10 Load Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 MRBackup Roll of Honor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 MRBackup Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 MRBackup.bigfile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 23 MRBackup.context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 MRBackup.init . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 8 MRBackup.xcld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Operations Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Parent directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Pathname Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Pathname Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 6, 8, 10 Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 8 Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Protection bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Quit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Rename . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Restore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 8 Restoring the Backups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Resume Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 15 Save Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Select multiple files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Slider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Speak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 STOP gadget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Up-arrow gadget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Use Archive Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 11 Utilities Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Volume names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Warranties and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Windows Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Yesterday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6