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Text File | 1993-09-21 | 19KB | 409 lines

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ The following "reprint" describes PDT (The Pro~Formance Data Tool). │ │ This article has appeared in several newsletters and publications. │ │ │ │ The article was written by the author of a product that COMPETES WITH │ │ PDT! What better way to learn about the features of a product than │ │ through the eyes of a competitor. │ │ │ │ For information on PDT contact: Rob Smetana │ │ Pro~Formance │ │ 132 Alpine Terrace │ │ San Francisco, CA 94117 USA │ │ (415) 863-0530) │ │ │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ ║ ║ Hold on! ║ ║ ║ ║ PDT's awesome powers will get your adrenaline pumping. ║ ║ ║ ║ by ║ ║ Frederick Volking ║ ║ ║ ╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Introduction ========================= I must tell you up-front that I HATE doing this. A few years ago I wrote a program that we've sold commercially in markets all over the world. But I'm here to recommend that you try a DIFFERENT program: the Pro~Formance Data Tool, or PDT. If you create or use dBase files (or data files written by other programs), if you're a programmer, or if you must maintain or repair data files, do yourself a favor and examine PDT. You'll be amazed at it's flexibility, speed and awesome power. Note that PDT is NOT just for programmers and database experts. It's an easy-to-use program anyone will find useful when they need to view or edit files your word processor can't handle. In fact, PDT is especially useful to non-programmers who rely on data files but don't care to (or know how to) write programs to manage those files. History ========================= I've been working with data files for about 20 years: all sizes, shapes, formats and kinds. I can't count the number of times I've had to write a Q-&-D (Quick-&-Dirty) program to bail myself (or a colleague) out of some type of situation. For example: - You're handed a new task that requires managing someone else's data files, files with a structure you don't understand. - While downloading or creating a file, several records get corrupted. - A data file has too many fields; or fields are too wide or too narrow. - As you're developing or updating a program, something goes wrong and you damage a 15 megabyte data file. - You're developing a data file and find you have to mass-edit several thousand records. - You need to merge data into a file; or you want to save parts of a file to another file. Every time I faced situations like these and had to write yet another Q-&-D program, I wished someone would invent an editor whose only job was to help me VIEW, UNDERSTAND or EDIT ANY file, in a simple, logical, structured way. As I looked around for something to handle the task, I'd often find something that let me view files, or that would edit certain types of files. But I never found one that let me view, format, interrogate and edit ANY file, simply and easily. So I gave up looking and wrote my own. I wrote it mainly for my own use; but others took note, and a software distributor picked it up and began marketing it commercially under the name of DFD (the Data File Doctor). Although I wrote DFD, I've always known it was a rather crude Q-&-D solution. So after almost 3 years of limping along with DFD, I finally found another product that does everything DFD should have done. The program is: PDT (the Pro~Formance Data Tool) It's offered by: Rob Smetana Pro~Formance 132 Alpine Terrace San Francisco, CA 94117 USA (415) 863-0530) PDT directly competes with my DFD product. But that's okay because, frankly, I save more $$$ using PDT (in time and effort) than I make from DFD. That says a lot! Overview ========================= PDT is an extremely flexible tool to view and edit ANY file -- data files, EXE or COM files, font files, EBCDIC files, files on networked drives, floppy drives or hard disks. Using PDT I've edited tiny 0 and 1 byte files, as well as huge, 970-megabyte files residing on a networked 1-gigabyte Novell file server. (PDT can edit files up to 2 gigabytes in size!) Very simply, PDT is a wonder to behold! Its features, power and speed are unparalleled. In fact, the adrenaline flows when you watch PDT safely and quickly change thousands or millions of bytes of data. Do yourself a favor and contact the author to get a copy: Rob Smetana, (415) 863-0530. PDT's speed is nothing less than phenomenal. Working on a Novell network, I edited the first bytes in a 970 megabyte file, then jumped to the end of the file and changed the last byte. The total elapsed time was 15 seconds -- on a networked drive! Ease of Use; Getting Help ========================= Editing files is much like working in a word processor. Move around files using cursor pad keys. And if you're working in dBase or other formatted data files, you can Tab from field to field to quickly view or edit fields. PDT offers both pull-down menus and fast keyboard hotkeys. Most hotkeys are intuitive and easy to remember (O = Open file, C = Close, S = Search, etc.). PDT supports a mouse and works in 25-, 43- and 50-line modes, in color or monochrome modes. Online-help is available for EVERY option (see figure 1). For example, pull down a menu then either highlight an option and press F1 or click the right mouse button and a help window pops up. There's also an editable "quick reference" file you can either view from inside PDT or print. Figure 1: Pull down any menu, highlight an option, then press F1 for Help with any option in that menu. File Edit Search Block Define Options Help ┌──────────────────────────────────┐ │ Open a new file/window (ctrl-O) │ │ Close current window (ctrl-C) │ ├──────────────────────────────────┤ │ Create a directory │ │ Create a file │ │ Delete a file │ │ Rename a file │ │ Copy a file to a new location │ │ Combine two or more files │ │ Change file size │ ├──────────────────────────────────┤ │ Translate File: EBCDIC-to-ASCII │ │ Translate File: ASCII-to-EBCDIC │ ├──────────────────────────────────┤ │ Exit to DOS (ctrl-X) │ └──────────────────────────────────┘ Data File Editing ========================= PDT's data file editing tools are unmatched in any program. For example, if you open a dBase ".DBF" file, PDT automatically formats your view of the data into logical rows and columns. Many programs can do that. But PDT is unique not only in the long list of other features it offers, but also in letting you use this same intelligence with virtually ANY fixed-length data file, like those created by most programming languages. PDT can remember the field-by-field layout of your data files, and can then display that data in rows and highlighted columns -- automatically, whenever you open the file. For example, Figure 2 shows how a data file might look like BEFORE you tell PDT what the file's structure is (which is easy to do). Just define the file structure, then every time you open the file, the information in it is laid out in rows and columns as shown in Figure 3! Figure 2: Many programs display data this way ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │Kim Johnson 3300 South 18th Street │ │Venus CO 31002 7145259933 Dennis Avery │ │ 127 East South Temple George WA 98322│ │8015669112 Andrew Youngman, │ │Sr. 945 Van Ness Street Sabastol CA 94532│ │4153331200 Sam Henderson 9800 South │ │1000 West Clarion │ │GA 32234 2062648822 Claire Ruddman 4400│ │South Delridge Way Bellevue WA 98432 21438892│ │00 Bill Williamson 5423 North Queens Driv│ └────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Figure 3: But PDT displays the same data logically ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │Kim Johnson 3300 South 18th Street │ │Dennis Avery 127 East South Temple │ │Andrew Youngman, Sr. 945 Van Ness Street │ │Sam Henderson 9800 South Highway 11 │ │Claire Ruddman 4483 Delridge Way, Suite│ │Bill Williamson 5423 North Queens Drive │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Once PDT knows the format of your data (as shown above in Figure 3): - You can tab from field-to-field to easily view or edit fields. - As you move the cursor to a field, PDT displays the value of that field -- even fields stored as packed binary formats. - You can easily edit fields, even packed binary numeric fields. PDT automatically converts binary numbers to their decimal equivalent, lets you edit them and reconverts edited values back to the binary equivalent before saving them to disk. Examples ========================= Here are examples of the types of things I've done with PDT: - We created a new dBase file to store incoming data. After the data was merged, I found several fields were much wider than necessary. I just moved to the fields, told PDT to shrink them, and in seconds it was done -- across thousands of records, saving millions of bytes of disk space. PDT even updated the dBase file header automatically. And PDT can do this just as easily with non-dBase data files. - I needed to copy several hundred records to a new file. Using PDT's Block Mark and Block Export features it took 10 seconds! - We download a 300 megabyte file from the mainframe. But we soon discovered it had been damaged in transit. I opened it in PDT, set the record length, and within seconds had found the damaged area. It took just 1-2 minutes to restore the damaged data and we were on our way -- without writing a single line of code. - I needed to merge data from one file into the middle of another. I opened both files in PDT (PDT lets you open 4 file windows simultaneously), marked the block I wanted to copy, jumped to the other file window and selected "Copy/Insert." PDT merged the data instantly. - We were handed a data file and asked to analyze it. But nobody knew its file structure! I opened it in PDT, made a guess as to the record length, then leaned on the F9 and F10 keys. When you press F9 or F10, PDT adjusts the record length up or down, and re-draws the screen to adjust it's "view" of the data. Like a giant pendulum, the data literally swings into the proper view. Once we figured out the record length, it was easy to identify where each field began, and what type of field it was (ie., character, integer, double, currency, etc.). For each field, we pressed a key and told PDT what the field name and field type were. When we were done, PDT saved a "structure file" to disk. This structure file gave us everthing we needed to create the "structure" or "TYPE" our programs needed to read the data. And whenever we opened the file again in PDT, PDT read the structure file and automatically formatted the data into rows and columns. List of Features ========================= The examples above just scratch the surface of what you can do with PDT. Here's a summary of some of the 50 or so options PDT offers. Block Options "Blocks" can be records, columns or a continuous stream. Once you mark a block you can Delete it, Export it, Fill it (with any ASCII character or phrase), Copy it (to another location in the same file, or to another file). You can even mark a column and Add it up, or add Sequence Numbers to it (like unique record or customer numbers). Search & Replace You may Search or Search & Replace forwards or backwards, anywhere in the file, or in just the block or column you've marked. You can ignore Upper and Lower case, and you can Search & Replace using any ASCII character: 0 (null) through 255. EBCDIC File Support One of PDT's most unique features is how easily it handles EBCDIC files, like those you'd download from large IBM computers. You can leave EBCDIC files on disk as-is, and tell PDT to dynamically translate them on-the-fly into ASCII. This lets you view and edit data in easy-to-understand ASCII format. Anything you change is automatically converted back to EBCDIC, and then saved to disk. Or, if you prefer, you can ask PDT to translate files from EBCDIC to ASCII, or vice versa. File Management PDT lets you Create, Delete, Rename or Copy files, or create file directories. A powerful "Join" command lets you merge up to 6 files at a time, using the smallest amount of disk space possible. Flys in the Ointment ========================= In short, PDT lets you view and edit virtually ANY type of file, up to 2 gigabytes in size. And since you can open 4 file windows, you can work with up to 8 gigabytes of data at once! But PDT isn't perfect. My main gripe is that I didn't write it..... Okay, I said it. To understand another PDT limitation, you have to know a little about how PDT handles file editing. Unlike a word processor or editor which loads files into memory, PDT loads NOTHING into memory. When PDT opens a file, you'll be looking at what's on disk (and PDT displays files-on-disk with astonishing speed). Using this approach, PDT can help you edit 2-gigabyte files with NO NEED for extra memory. But turn edit mode on and change something, and that change is immediately written to disk. That's why edit mode is OFF by default. The fact that changes are immediately saved to disk accounts for PDT's restriction that when you Replace something, you must replace it with something else of the same length. A word processor's search and replace function can expand or contract things in memory. But if PDT replaced something with something else of a different width, every time it found a "match" PDT would have to re-write the entire disk file from that point all the way to the end. As you can imagine, with large files, this would be time-consuming and could be risky. And if you're editing EXE or COM files, you should NEVER change the length of a variable. So this "limitation" has some justification. PDT's approach also means that YOU must be careful and should make backup copies. When edit mode is ON, PDT saves changes immediately to disk. So turn edit mode on only when you must change something, then turn edit mode back off again. Other suggestions include: - PDT's calculator offers both decimal and hexadecimal calculations. I'd suggest that it be centered on the screen (rather than off to the side), provide a tape readout, and support a mouse. - While PDT correctly translates EBCDIC characters to their ASCII equivalents, the "values" of EBCDIC packed numeric fields don't always translate properly. That's because translating the values of packed numeric fields requires that you know where fields are and what type of field each is, something PDT often - You can open up to 4 file windows simultaneously, either horizontally or vertically. No problem there. But when you close a window, PDT re-draws all the other windows to fill in the now-empty space. In doing so it sometimes changes your original choice of a window's layout: horizontal/vertical. But when you think about it, I'm not sure what choices it has. Summary ========================= If you create or use data files, if you're a programmer, or if you must maintain or repair data files, do yourself a favor and examine PDT. You'll be amazed at it's flexibility, speed and awesome power. I wouldn't care how much it costs (which isn't much); I save that much every week I use it.