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UTIL Version 2.1 A Multifunction Utility For the IBM Personal Computer MSDOS Version 2.x from Mutant Software Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 2 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ UTIL Version 2.1 Copyright (c) Mutant Software 1983, 1984 User Supported Software This program is considered "user supported" by it's author. Unlike other programs, "user supported" software encourages you to copy and redistribute this program (but not for profit, of course). Utility programs like UTIL should be reasonably priced. UTIL is priced accordingly. UTIL has withstood the test of time. Early versions of the program were released in November '83. It has had almost a year of user feedback, enhancements and bug fixes. It is growing into a very stable product. If you use this program and like it, your contribution of $25 would be greatly appreciated. For your $25, you will get the latest version of UTIL, along with printed documentation in PC- sized booklet. Let me know what version you have, so that I don't mail you the same one you already have... you will be sent the next release of the program if you contribute. I can accept invoices, and request that corporate users of the program pay for it, and pay for each copy in use within the company. We can make a deal on multiple copies. Mutant Software Program UTIL PO Box 46 Sugar Land, TX 77487 Regardless of whether you make a contribution or not, you are encouraged to copy and distribute this program to others, with the stipulation that this notice not be removed, and that the code has not been modified in any way. If you do not have printed documentation, it resides on your distribution diskette under the name UTIL.DOC. Merely print this file to your printer. System requirements : 128K and DOS 2.x, 3.x or higher The price is very reasonable, so please be honest. Some cash flow Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 3 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ is required to offset the cost of R&D, mailing, etc. Besides, if you don't contribute something to this venture, I will never know that you have the program. Due to the relative slowness of this method of distribution, the chances are that if you use the program and note some problem with it, the problem has been fixed. New features are being added regularly to this program, either at the suggestion of users, or as I see the need. I am open to suggestions for the enhancement of this program or to reports of any bugs. I would also like to hear of any ways that the documen- tation for this program can be made clearer. I believe this program to be relatively "bug free". It's inner workings contain a few IBM specific routines, but UTIL should run properly on all close compatibles. If you send in a contribution, please let me know something of your hardware/software configura- tion. It may help if you have problems in the future. If you really like UTIL, please encourage others to use it. I believe it to be quite a productivity enhancer (I originally wrote it for myself), and hope that others will find it equally as useful. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 5 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 1. Program UTIL 1.1 Introduction UTIL is a general purpose collection of utilities for use under DOS 2.x. A given utility is invoked either directly from the command line (when invoking UTIL), or from a screen menu. The screen menu option is gotten when you invoke UTIL with no op- tions. The UTIL program should be kept in the root directory on all disks which you will want it's facilities on. Alternately, keep UTIL in a RAM pseudo-disk (if you have enough memory). This will make it "instantly" available. Often, utility programs are written in assembler, and are very small (in file size). Generally, they are have only one function. A collection of these utilities is difficult to haul around from disk to disk. UTIL was designed to handle that problem. It is one program with a variety of useful options. UTIL was written in C, using the Ci86 compiler from Computer Innovations. The C programming language generates very tight, fast code. But the overhead for a single program is large (mainly due to file I/O facilities). This makes C lack usefullness in generating small utility routines. The advantage of using C is that additional capabilities added to the original (large) core program produces very little increase in code size. In addition, C code is much easier to maintain than assembler. It is for this reason that UTIL has many utilities built into it. Some of the features of UTIL are much more useful than others. The directory option is by far the most useful. Look at what it can do carefully. Read through the other options, and find out what else the program can do. The crude database option is an often overlooked feature of UTIL. The documentation was printed on the HP ThinkJet printer. Very fast, very quiet, and very inexpensive. Check it out if you are looking for a printer (not letter quality, though). 1.2 Disclaimer UTIL has been tested extensively. Every effort has been made to ensure the integrity of performance of UTIL. As with any other disk utility program which deals with directory handling, there exists the potential for losing files through improper use of the program. Here is some good advice: back up your files routinely! All disk handling done by UTIL is done via standard DOS 2.x Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 6 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ interrupts. No BIOS routines are used. Thus, if DOS is safe to use, UTIL should be too! Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 7 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 2. Installing UTIL The UTIL program is not copy protected. These installation in- structions are meant to make UTIL work best for you. a) Put DOS 2.0 diskette in drive A: b) Put a blank diskette in drive B: c) Enter the following: FORMAT B:/S Now, remove the DOS diskette from drive A:, and replace with your UTIL diskette. Enter the following: COPY A:UTIL.EXE B: This installs the UTIL program on a fresh diskette. d) Remove the UTIL diskette from drive A: and replace with the DOS 2.0 diskette again. Enter the following com- mands: COPY *.* B: COPY CON: B:CONFIG.SYS DEVICE=ANSI.SYS ^Z Every line typed in is followed by hitting the ENTER key. The last line (^Z) is gotten either by hitting F6 or CTRL-Z. e) Copy any other DOS utilities or programs you may re- quire regularly onto drive B. What you did in the above steps was to create a boot diskette for your system. The important things done were: * Put the file ANSI.SYS on the boot diskette. This file was provided on your original DOS 2.0 distribution diskette. * Build a file called CONFIG.SYS on your boot diskette, with one line in the file, saying DEVICE=ANSI.SYS. When DOS 2.0 boots, it looks for a file by this name. If it finds it, it loads any specified device drivers (ANSI.SYS, in this case). This provides for extended screen and keyboard handling, which UTIL uses. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 8 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ Note: You needn't worry about the CONFIG.SYS or ANSI.SYS files after you have booted your machine. They are only required at machine boot. 2.1 RAM Disk If you have enough memory to support a RAM disk, it would be a good idea to copy UTIL.EXE to the RAM disk when you boot up. The copy operation should be done from within your AUTOEXEC.BAT file after creation of the RAM disk. 2.2 The PC XT Put the UTIL distribution diskette in drive A:, and type in the following C>A: A>COPY UTIL.EXE C:\ or C>COPY A:UTIL.EXE \ The idea is to load UTIL into the root directory on your hard disk. 2.3 For both machines On all the diskettes you will boot the machine up from, you need to * Have an AUTOEXEC.BAT file * Have a file called CONFIG.SYS with a line in it which says DEVICE=ANSI.SYS. * Have the ANSI.SYS file (supplied on your DOS 2.0 diskette) 2.4 Changing .EXE Name Many users find it convenient to rename UTIL to DO. This makes Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 9 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ for less to type in, and seems to read naturally when typed from the command line. For example, A>DO SD C:\ASM\SOURCE reads "do sorted directory on C:\ASM\SOURCE". If you do decide to change the name of UTIL, be sure to tell UTIL about it (see Appendix A). Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 10 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 3. Summary of Utilities Name Function sd Sorted directory br Screen listing of a text file. Uses PgUp and PgDn keys mv Move files between subdirectories (on same drive) pipe Filter for output of DOS DIR or TREE commands kb Allows keyboard redefinition db A crude data base routine tf Causes printer to do a top-of-form ty Type to your printer directly mo Switch to monochrome display co Switch to color display sc Copy current screen to other screen chmod Change file mode All commands may be entered in either upper or lower case. Most of the commands listed above have additional options which can be invoked. These are described under the detailed description of each of the commands, which follows. UTIL was designed as a utility. It is meant to be easy to use and fast. It is not sickeningly friendly. It does not say please once. Errors are caught, but if the program cannot figure out something to do, it will usually do something harmless (wrong, but harmless). Many users are finding out that an overabundance of menus and mushy friendliness really get in your way after you have learned how to run the program. Not only that, but after you are familiar with the program, superfriendly programs (and com- puters) begin to insult your intelligence! If you cannot remember what UTIL options are available, or the order of entry of items on the command line, or if you want to use several of UTIL's features in the same run, merely type UTIL <ENTER> Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 11 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ from the command line. UTIL will then prompt you with the avail- able options, and what to do each step of the way. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 12 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 4. Sorted Directory (sd) 4.1 Introduction to Sorted Directories SD will probably be the most useful of all the utilities con- tained in the UTIL program. You will find no end to the usefull- ness of SD. After you have seen what it can do, you will probably wonder how you ever got along without it. SD will serve you most effectively when installed in a RAM disk. Installed this way, it will always be available, and can be invoked almost instantly. SD is useful for full screen directory and file manipulation. By default, it displays the current directory in alphabetical order. Only 30 entries may be viewed on the screen at a time. 30 files is not the maximum number of files UTIL can handle, merely the maximum number which can be displayed on the screen at any one time. Since the directory is being viewed in a full screen fashion, hitting the RIGHT arrow key a couple of times will bring in another 15 entries. This continues until you don't have any more directory entries. The LEFT arrow key does the same thing in the reverse direction. Try it. Even if you do not use the subdirectory feature of DOS 2.0, you will still enjoy the ease with which you can look at what is contained on your diskettes. Invoke UTIL in the SD option as follows (from the DOS prompt): UTIL [sort]SD [drive][path][filespec] The [sort], [drive], [path] and [filespec] are optional. Here are some of the ways you can invoke the SD option of UTIL: UTIL SD ................... directory we're in UTIL SD A: ................ directory drive A UTIL XSD C:\LOTUS ......... directory sorted by extension UTIL SD C:\TEXT\*.BAK ..... directory of files with ext BAK The following documentation describes the wide variety of things you can do while viewing the subdirectory. Take time to read it carefully, as most of the features can be very useful. You may exit UTIL by hitting <ESC>. There are other ways out of UTIL, and these will all be described in detail. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 13 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ The [sort] option defines how you want UTIL to sort the directory before display. Allowable sorts are A,X,D and -, for Alphabetic (the default sort), Date, Xtension, and inverse date (-). For example, to call up the directory of drive B in extension sort order, UTIL XSD B: UTIL recognizes and displays the names of two directories, the Home directory and the Displayed directory. The Home directory is the directory the user was in when he ran UTIL. The Displayed directory is the directory UTIL is currently showing on the screen. The Home Directory will also be the directory to which any files are copied when the COPY command is invoked, if the destination supplied to COPY is defaulted (see the COPY command for more details). While a directory is displayed, the user can instantly resort the displayed directory by alpha, extension, or date, all at the touch of a key ( A for alpha, X for extension, D for date, or - for inverse date). The user can delete a file or files in whatever directory he is currently viewing on the screen by moving the "cursor" next to an entry and hitting alt-D. This will cause a DEL to appear next to that entry. In the directory list, all subdirectories of the Displayed Direc- tory are preceded by a "\". If the user positions the cursor over a subdirectory name and hits <ENTER>, the Displayed directory becomes the that subdirectory, and the subdirectory is read and displayed on the screen. When you get the directory on the screen, you will see up to two boxes on the screen, each containing up to 15 directory entries. In the upper left corner of each box, is a single letter. This is the current sort order of the directory. It may be change with a single keystroke. 4.2 Resorting the Directory (A,X,D or -) 4.2.1 Alphabetic Sort (A). Hit A to sort the directroy alphabetically. Note that this is the default sort. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 14 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 4.2.2 Extension Sort (X). Hit X to resort the viewed directory by extension. 4.2.3 Date Sort (D). Hit D to resort the viewed directory by date. 4.2.4 Inverse Date Sort (-). Hit - to sort the viewed directory in reverse date order (newest to oldest). 4.3 Going Through (Sub)directories As was mentioned earlier, the default sort order for the direc- tory list is alphabetic. At most, 30 directory entries may be viewed per screen. We will first discuss how to move quickly around the directory you are currently viewing, then moving around between directories. 4.3.1 Column Cursor Movement (f2,f4,f6,f8 and f10). Within the column the cursor is in, you can quickly move using the aforementioned function keys. Using these keys, you will never leave the column the cursor is in. Rather than explain what they do, try them. 4.3.2 Cursor to the First Directory Entry (Home). Hitting the Home key moves the cursor to the very first entry in the directory listing. 4.3.3 Cursor to the Last Directory Entry (End). Hitting the End key moves the cursor to the very last entry in the directory listing. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 15 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 4.3.4 Cursor to File Beginning with Letter (/). Hitting / will cause UTIL to prompt you for a letter. Whatever letter you hit, the cursor will be moved to the first file start- ing with that letter (only in the alpha sort mode). If you are sorted by extension, the cursor will be moved to the first file whose extension starts with the specified letter. If you hit the / by mistake, merely hit <ESC> in response to the prompt at the bottom of the screen. 4.3.5 Up a Level (.). Hitting . (period) causes the program to go up one level in the subdirectory heiarchy. The command will be ignored if you are already in the root directory. Say you were in the subdirectory C:\LANG\FORTRAN, viewing it's directory under SD. Hitting . would cause SD to back up to C:\LANG, and display that subdirectory. 4.3.6 Last Directory (L). Hit L to see the last subdirectory (or drive, or whatever) that you were viewing previously. Let's say you were viewing subdirec- tory C:\LANG\C and you went off and viewed the contents of drive A:. Rather than having to respecify C:\LANG\C if you want to review it, merely hit L. Note: UTIL only maintains one previous directory information. Because of this, hitting L twice is a waste of time. 4.3.7 View a Different Drive (V). Hit V to see the directory of a different disk drive than the one you are currently viewing. At the bottom of the screen, you are prompted to enter the drive letter. Respond appropriately. No <ENTER> is required. 4.3.8 Immediately View Another Directory (I). Hit I to immediately view the directory of another drive, or merely another subdirectory on the current drive. Or, use it to specify a wildcard file specification to cut down what you have Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 16 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ to look at in the directory you are viewing. As an example, let's say you are currently viewing a directory on drive B, and you wish to see the directory of drive A. Hit I to get into this option. When the prompt appears at the bottom of the screen, respond with A: <ENTER> You will now be viewing the directory of drive A. Note that in this simple case, you could have gotten the same effect with the V option. Thus, a more complicated example is in order. Suppose you are viewing a directory on drive B and wish to look at directory A:\DBASE. First, hit I to get into this option. When the prompt appears at the bottom of the screen, respond with A:\DBASE If I had wanted to see the directory entries with an extension of .DAT, I would have said A:\DBASE\*.DAT As you did in puberty, experiment with this one. 4.3.9 Move into a Displayed Subdirectory (<ENTER>). As was mentioned previously, any items in the directory list whose names begin with a "\" are subdirectories. Position the cursor over a file name beginning with a "\", and hit <ENTER>. The subdirectory you were pointing to will be entered, and its directory will be read and displayed. 4.3.10 Return to Home Directory (H). Hitting H will return you to your home directory, viewing its contents. This option was installed as a time saver, since there must have been a reason you were in the home directory to begin with! 4.3.11 Reread Directory (!). To reread a directory, hit !. Why would you ever want to reread a Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 17 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ directory? This option is most useful when you have several diskettes upon which you wish to find some files you need. You put the first diskette in drive B, and do an SD on it. This disk does not have what you wanted. Load the second disk in drive B, and hit !. The directory of drive B will be reread, which is exactly what you wanted. 4.4 Screen Copy (S) If you are lucky enough to have both the monochrome and a graphics screen, this command may prove useful. Hitting S will copy the contents of the screen you are on to the screen you aren't on. When you are comparing the contents of disks or sub- directories, this can be very useful. Note that you do not switch screens by hitting S. You merely copy the contents of the screen you are working on to the other screen. 4.5 Printing a File (P) While the cursor is over the name of a file, hitting P will cause that file to be printed to the line printer. This option works well in conjunction with the BROWSE option, wherein after rummag- ing through several files on a diskette with BROWSE, you finally find the one you want to print out. Hit <ESC> to leave BROWSE, then hit P. The file you were just browsing will begin printing. The PRINT option will properly expand tabs contained in the text. If you have one of the many available print spoolers (many are free), this command will work it's fastest. Otherwise, you must wait for the file to finish printing before you can resume. 4.6 Browsing a File (B or alt-B) While the cursor is over the name of a file, the user can hit B to browse the file. It is assummed that the file being browsed is a text file capable of being viewed. Don't bother trying to view .COM files, for instance. Hitting <ESC> takes you back to the directory you were viewing before you did the browse. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 18 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ As a special feature for WORDSTAR fans, hitting alt-B will browse your WORDSTAR files, making them suitable for screen display. The display will not be perfect, but you will be able to read the file well enough to know what it contains. The browse command is unique in that text is read and put to the screen directly from disk. The reading is done one screen at a time. Thus, browse will get your text to the screen much faster than most editors can. And browse does not care how long your file is. A 100Kb file will appear on the screen just as fast as a 2Kb file. In BROWSE, a bar across the bottom of the screen contains the name of the file being browsed, and what commands are available. Hit ? to get a more descriptive explanation of the commands. While in BROWSE, you will notice a small right-pointing arrow on the left of the screen. Your UP and DOWN arrow keys move this little arrow. You will use this arrow for marking blocks of text from the file being browsed for either printing, or writing to a file. The M key is used to mark the block of text to be written. Use your arrow keys to position the arrow alongside a line of text and mark it (using M). Then, PgUp or PgDn through the text file, and mark another line of text. As the M key is hit to mark text, note that an asterisk appears to the right of the instruction bar at the bottom of the screen. With this, you can tell at a glance how many points have been marked. If you marked one (or two) points, and cannot remember what you marked, hitting U will "undo" any marks which were made. After you have marked two lines, hitting P will cause all lines between (and including) the marked lines will to be printed to the printer. If you have made one mark, then hit *, this tells BROWSE to consider the last line of the file as the second mark. Thus, hitting P will print from the first mark to the end of the file. If no marks are made, and you hit *, this tells BROWSE to mark the text from the top of the current screen to the end of the file. Following the * with a P will cause those lines to be printed. You may also use F and A on marked text. F will send the marked portion to a file. You will be prompted for the file name. A appends the marked portion onto a file. A will only ask for a file name if no previous file name was supplied after hitting F. If you specify F to send the marked portion to a text file, and Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 19 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ the file name you supply already exists, the marked text will be appended to the named file. The file will not be overwritten. The real advantage of using A rather than F is that you can easily append random portions of text to a single file by merely marking the blocks of text, and hitting A. You do not have to keep respecifying the destination file name when using A. F, on the other hand, will always request a file name. While in BROWSE, hitting S will cause the screen you are cur- rently viewing to be copied to the other screen. This only works on two monitor systems, of course. Note that printing will go much faster if you have a print spooler. If you do not, you will (unfortunately) have to wait until the printing has completed. It may be better to always send the marked text to a file, since the file can be printed later (or in the background, using the DOS PRINT command). 4.7 Find String (F) With the cursor over the name of a file, hitting F will put UTIL in the "find" mode. You will be prompted for a substring to search for. Type in a character string you wish to search the file for. Any spaces you put in the search string are important, but case is not. In other words, you may enter the search string in upper or lower case. After you have entered what string to search for, UTIL opens the file and begins reading it, looking for the string you provided. If it doesn't find the string, you will be placed back in SD as though you had never asked UTIL to look for anything. If it finds the requested string, you are told the line number upon which the first occurance was found. This option, although not very quick, is useful for programmers who may wish to see if a particular subroutine (which was just changed) is called by a file, to determine if the file needs to be recompiled. There are, of course, many other uses for the F option... use your imagination. This option also de-Wordstars files, so that Wordstar files may be searched for a text string. The FIND option also remembers the last string that you looked for. So if you want to search for the same string in another Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 20 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ file, recall the last search string by hitting <ENTER> at the prompt. 4.8 Invoking Your Editor (E or alt-E) Invokes your favorite text editor on the file your cursor is pointing to. The name of your editor and how to invoke it are supplied in the DOS "environment" area (described in Appendix A of this manual). Often, after browsing a file, you decide that you would like to edit that file. With the cursor over the file you wish to edit, hit E. UTIL will call up your favorite text editor, and cause it to begin editing that file. By default, the editor invoked is the Personal Editor (sold by IBM). You can easily change this, though. Hitting alt-E, you will exit UTIL to your editor, and when you terminate your editor, you will return to UTIL, in the SD option, viewing the same directory you were before you left UTIL to run your editor. In the back of the DOS 2.0 manual there is a section on Advanced Commands. One of these is the SET command. This allows you to put data into the environment. The environment is described in Appen- dix A of this document. From the keyboard (at the DOS prompt, before running UTIL), merely type SET UT*ED = <expr> where <expr> is described in detail in Appendix E. Generally, one would do the following: SET UT*ED = editor where editor is the name of your favorite editor. For example, if you use EDLIN as your editor (god forbid), type in the following (at the DOS prompt): SET UT*ED = EDLIN It is a good idea to put this SET command in your AUTOEXEC file. This way, you will never forget to do it. See Appendix A for more info on the various SET commands available to UTIL. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 21 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 4.9 Invoking Your Wordprocessor (W or alt-W) Invokes your favorite wordprocessor on whatever file the cursor is on. This option is identical to the EDIT option described above, except that: a) Invokes your wordprocessor b) alt-W is the same as alt-E above re. returning to UTIL c) Wordprocessor defined via environment variable UT*WP As was discussed in the EDIT command above, you must place the name of your word processor in the environment. Do this as fol- lows: SET UT*WP = wordprocessor where wordprocessor is the name of your favorite word processor. For example, if you use WORDSTAR, you could type in the following (at the DOS prompt, before running UTIL): SET UT*WP = WS As was mentioned in EDIT, it is a good idea to place this line in your AUTOEXEC file so you won't forget to do it. If you usually invoke your wordprocessor by specifying the "a" and "p" options, you might specify this to UTIL by saying the following (at the DOS prompt, prior to running UTIL): SET UT*WP = mywp $ /a/p When you invoke your wordprocessor on a file by hitting the W option, UTIL will replace the $ with the name of the file which your cursor is on. All of this is explained in more detail in Appendix E. See Appendix A for more info on the various SET commands available to UTIL. 4.10 Help (alt-H or F1) Hitting alt-H or F1 at any time in SD will remind you of your available options, and what they do. The list is meant to jog your memory... consult the documentation when in doubt. Hit any key to get back to the sorted directory list you were viewing before you requested help. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 22 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 4.11 Operations Affecting Files The following are the operations which you may perform on a file (or on a group of files) while viewing directories. All of the commands in this section will cause the cursor to move down to the next file in the directory listing, anticipating you applying it to that file. Usually, this proves to be a correct assumption. 4.11.1 Delete a File (alt-D). With the cursor positioned over a file name, hitting alt-D marks the file for deletion. I say mark because the file will not be immediately deleted. You can cause the marked files to be deleted by hitting alt-X (execute). This gives you a chance to change your mind (see the alt-U option). Files flagged for deletion are not remembered when you move from directory to directory. Thus, if you try to change directories, the program will remind you that there are files flagged for deletion, and will ask it you wish to perform the deletions. A simple Y for yes or N for no is all that is re- quired. 4.11.2 Copy a File (alt-C). With the cursor positioned over a file name, hitting alt-C will mark the file for copying. When you attempt to leave UTIL, change directories, or type alt-X, you will be prompted as to where you wish the file be copied. Respond with either a drive (e.g. A:) or a subdirectory. If you wish to copy the files to your Home Directory, hit <ENTER> in response to the prompt. For example, let's say you are on drive A, and you invoke UTIL to do a sorted directory of drive B. You are viewing the contents of the disk in drive B, and you hit alt-C on a few files to mark them for copying. Now you hit alt-X to actually perform the copy operation. At the bottom of the screen, a prompt will appear,asking you where you want the files copied. Here are some possible responses: <ENTER> (Copies to your Home directory, drive A) A: (Same as above in this case) C:\PROG (Copies to drive C, subdirectory PROG) Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 23 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ If you specify a copy destination which is incorrect, you will be BEEPED, and reprompted for the destination again. If you change your mind, hit <ESC>. Copies are not done right away. They will be performed when you go to change subdirectories, exit UTIL, or specifically tell UTIL to perform the operations (done via alt-X). Thus, you can mark many files in a particular directory for copying, then perform all of the copies at the same time. For all files marked for copying, you will be prompted for only one destination. Environment variable UT*OP provides (amongst other things) two user settable options for dealing with the copy operation. Specifically, they are VE (to perform a disk verify of each copy), and CC (which stands for "check copy". If you attempt to copy over a file which already exists, you will be warned and allowed a few options). See Appendix A for more detailed informa- tion on the environment variables. 4.11.3 Move Files (alt-M). This option works exactly like the move option (MV) available directly from UTIL. alt-M tags files to be moved. Just like the copy operation described above, you will be asked where to send the files whenever you tells UTIL to execute the tags. As described under the UTIL MV command, you can only move files around on the same drive. It is very fast, as no actual data movement occurs. Only directory information is changed. You will always get an error if you try to move a file to a directory where a file with that name already exists. If the error occurs, you will be alerted just as was described in the COPY command above (if you had set UT*OP=CC). 4.11.4 Tag With DOS Commands (<). Hitting < with the cursor next to a file marks it for application of DOS commands or programs. The mnemonic significance is that it is the DOS prompt backwards... backwards indicating that we want to stay in UTIL. When files are marked with <, you will be prompted to supply the commands to apply to these files when you instruct UTIL to change directories, exit or execute the commands (alt-X). At the prompt, reply with and <expr>, which is explained in detail in Appendix E. As an example, let's say you marked several Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 24 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ files with <. Now, you hit alt-X to tell UTIL to execute all marks in the current directory. UTIL will note that some files have been marked with <, and will put a prompt at the bottom of the screen asking you for commands. You might respond with something like this: COPY $ A: ^ DEL $ ^ to copy those marked files to drive A, then delete the files. It is important to note that any commands supplied in this fashion are regular DOS commands, which will be built up in a .BAT file for execution when we exit UTIL. 4.11.5 Special Command, User Defined (alt-S). While your cursor is positioned over a file name on the directory listing, hitting alt-S invokes your 'special' command on the file. As was done with the E and W options (see above), the command which is 'special' is contained in the environment. It goes under the name UT*SP. You must set it into the environment either at boot time, or before executing UTIL. Once specified, it needn't be reentered. (See Appendix A for more information). Let's say you were into assembly language programming, and you see several files in the directory listing that need to be reassmebled. The assembler program is called MASM. You would do the following (either at the DOS prompt, or in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file): SET UT*SP=MASM While the cursor is over a file name, hitting alt-S will cause the following command to be generated: MASM filename where filename is the file your cursor was pointing to. This command will not be executed until you exit UTIL. The command is merely generated internally, and held until you exit the program (it is actually put into a BATCH file which will be executed when the program UTIL terminates). Because of an apparent oversight, a .BAT file cannot execute another .BAT file (this is true in DOS 2.0, at least). If some- where in the middle of .BAT file 1 you invoke .BAT file 2, DOS will never return you to .BAT file 1 to finish it. Thus, if you set UT*SP to be a .BAT file, you may not be too happy with the results. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 25 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ If you want to run a batch file, there is a way to do it. Let's say you wish to run file PROG.BAT. If you would normally invoke this program (at the DOS prompt) as A>PROG argument1 argument2 you may tell UTIL to do the same thing by telling it the follow- ing: A>COMMAND/C PROG argument1 argument2 This invokes a secondary copy of the command processor to run your batch file. Also, UT*SP can specify more than one program to run. Let's take, for example, the compiling of a program under the C86 compiler. The compiler is composed of 4 programs, named CC1, CC2, CC3 and CC4. I am looking at a directory and see 3 files I want to com- pile. I move the cursor over each file name and hit alt-S. I then exit UTIL by hitting <ESC>. In my environment, I have previously put the following: SET UT*SP=.CC1 $ ^ .CC2 $ ^ .CC3 $ ^ .CC4 $ ^ The $ signs tell UTIL where the file name is to be placed. The ^ tells UTIL to do a carriage return. The "." in front of each instruction is optional, and tells UTIL to rip the extension (if there is one) off of the file name before inserting it in place of the $. Not putting the "." would have left the extension on the file name, and it would be substituted in it's entirety for the $ at all three occurances. Note that if you mark a file by hitting alt-S, but have failed to specify UT*SP, UTIL will not give you an error, but will instead cause the following command to be executed: ECHO filename This will just print the file name on the screen, and won't hurt anything. Since UTIL created this line in a file called DO$$$.BAT, you could go in with your editor and fix it up to provide the commands you actually wanted. Remember: Any strings which needs to go in the environment should be specified via SET commands in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file!! 4.11.6 Rename File (alt-R). With the cursor positioned over a file name, hitting alt-R will Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 26 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ tell UTIL that you wish to rename the file. At the bottom of the screen, you will be asked what you wish to rename the file to. Answer the question. The file will be renamed, per your instruc- tions. If you hit alt-R, and didn't mean to, merely hit <ESC> at the prompt. 4.11.7 Global Operations (*). While viewing a directory on the screen, hitting * puts a prompt at the bottom of the screen. In the center of the screen will be a list of the available ways that you can mark the files, along with a short description of what each mark does. The current sort mode determines just how the selected mark will be globally applied. The logic used for the various sort modes is described below. If you are in the alpha sort, all files will be marked. This is useful if you want to do something to most of the files in a directory. You mark the files, then go back and undo the marks on files you don't want to mess with. If you are in the extension sort, all files with the same exten- sion as the file your cursor is pointing to are marked. If you are in the date sort, you mark all files from (and includ- ing) the one pointed to by the cursor to the last file in the date sorted list. If you are in the inverse date sort, the mark will cause all files from the cursor location back in time to be marked. If this is at all unclear, call up a directory and try it. You can always hit alt-U to undo any marks made to the files. And remember, you are only marking the files. No action will be taken until you tell UTIL to perform the marked operations (via alt-X or by exiting UTIL). 4.11.8 Undo (alt-U). There are several things which you can do to files in a directory which are not done instantly. They are Deletes Copies Moves Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 27 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ When you mark a file for one of the above operations, a flag appears outside of the directory box (next to the file name) letting you know how this file has been marked. Position the cursor by a file which has been marked, and hit alt- U. The mark will disappear. The alt-U option is especially useful when used in conjunction with the global (*) option. Let's say you have used * to mark 15 .BAK files for deletion. But there are two of these files you would like to keep. Merely position the cursor over the two files you wish to keep and hit alt-U. The DEL will disappear, assuring you that the file will not be deleted. 4.11.9 Execute Deletes, Copies, Moves (alt-x). When you are satisfied that files in the current directory have been properly marked for either copy, deletion or moving, hit alt-X. All files marked for deletion will actually be deleted. If any files are marked for copying, you will be prompted for the destination for the copy operation. If there are any files marked for moving, you will be prompted for the destination also. 4.12 Repeat last command (=) Hitting the = key will repeat the last keystroke command you supplied to UTIL. It is useful for things like marking several files in a row for deletion. Hit alt-D to mark the first file for deletion, then = for each of the other files. 4.13 Exiting UTIL There are several ways to exit the SD option of UTIL and return to DOS. The ways to leave UTIL will be described in detail here. If any commands have been built for execution, they will be executed from the DO$$$ file at termination in all cases. 4.13.1 Plain Old Exit (<ESC>). Hitting <ESC> will return you to DOS in the subdirectory you were Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 28 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ in when you entered UTIL. 4.13.2 Remain In Subdirectory Being Viewed (Q). Hit Q to exit UTIL and have the directory being viewed be the current directory when DOS regains control. 4.13.3 Exit UTIL and return after running DO$$$ (F3). F3 will cause you to leave UTIL, run any commands build in DO$$$, then return to the SD option of UTIL, viewing the same directory you were viewing before you hit F3. 4.13.4 Supply DOS Command(s) (>). Hit > to supply a DOS commands to be executed upon termination of UTIL. The mnemonic significance of the > is that this is what the standard DOS prompt is (clever, huh?). After hitting >, you will be prompted for the DOS commands to type in. Any <expr> is allowed (see Appendix E for more details). By allowing this method of exiting UTIL, you can take advantage of the fact that the cursor resides over a file name and use it in the <expr> you supply. If your PC has a lot of memory, you may want to try specifying the BM option on UT*OP in your environment (see Appendix A). This tells UTIL that your PC has "Big Memory", and that rather than building a batch file to invoke your program, UTIL should run the program specified and remain resident. After the specified program is run, you will get a prompt telling you to "Hit any key to continue". Hitting a key will return you to UTIL exactly where you left off (UTIL never left memory). If you try to load a program which is too big to fit in memory, it will not load. In this case you will have to exit UTIL, freeing up the memory it used. The BM option is very useful to people with more than 400K in their systems, but is probably of less use to those who have less. It all depend upon the size (and memory requirements) of the programs you wish to run. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 29 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 5. Command Summary for SD The following is a command summary for the options available to you in SD. It is intended for quick reference only. Single Key Operations Key Function Performed B Browse the file your cursor is on. E Invoke your favorite editor to edit the file the cursor is on. W Invoke your favorite word processor on the file the cursor is on. F Search file for a text string P Print the file the cursor is on A Sort the directory alphabetically (this is the default) X Sort the directory by extension D Sort the directory by date - Sort the directory in reverse date order Home Put cursor on the first entry in the directory list End Put cursor on the last entry in the directory list Enter If cursor is on a subdirectory name, will put you in that subdirectory. f2-f10 All of the even function keys (f2, f4, f6, f8 and f10) move the cursor within the current column, in incre- ments of 3. / Prompts you for a letter. Cursor will be placed on the first file whose name starts with that letter (in alpha sort), or the first file whose extension starts with that letter (in extension sort). V View a different drive R Immediately go to the root directory I Immediately select a drive/subdirectory Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 30 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ . Revert one level back in directory L Go back to last directory viewed ! Reread directory H Return to home directory * Global function. You will be queried what to do > Enter DOS command(s) and exit UTIL < Enter DOS command(s) for later execution ESC Causes you to leave the directory option of UTIL F3 Exit UTIL to return to DOS, then return to UTIL Q Quit UTIL and remain in directory being viewed F1 Puts up a list of the available options in SD (Help) = Repeat last command Alt Key Commands Name Function alt-B Browse Wordstar files alt-R Rename file alt-C Copy file from one place to another alt-M Move file between subdirectories alt-D Delete file alt-S Special tag.. see description of alt-S alt-U Undo DEL, CPY or SP* mark on the pointed at file alt-X Perform deletions on marked files alt-H Puts up a list of the available options in SD (Help) Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 31 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 6. The UTIL Pipe (PIPE) The PIPE option of UTIL is designed to act as a DOS 2.x pipe filter, taking as its input the output of a DIR or TREE command. It is invoked as follows: DIR [filespec] | UTIL PIPE <expr> TREE | UTIL PIPE <expr> The PIPE option of UTIL is only selectable from the command line. It is not available as an option from the menu. <expr> are the commands to be executed on each item read from the DIR or TREE. <expr> format is explained in Appendix E. If I wanted to see print all files with an extension of .TXT, all I would have to do is DIR *.TXT | UTIL PIPE PRINT $ The PIPE option only knows about DIR's and TREE's, and it can read them and extract the appropriate file or subdirectory names out of each respective list. Caveat: Only regular DIR is allowed; UTIL will not understand DIR /W (the wide form of the DIR command). UTIL would intercept the output of the DIR command, and for each file name would write out the string "PRINT filename", where "filename" is supplied by the DIR command. Doing the above all by itself is useless, though, since all output is sent to the stand- ard output device (the screen). If you wanted to have the opera- tions actually performed, you have two ways to go. You may either redirect the output of UTIL to a .BAT file, or you can pipe the output of UTIL into COMMAND.COM. DIR *.C | UTIL PIPE PRINT $ > PRINTEM.BAT DIR *.C | UTIL PIPE PRINT $ | COMMAND The same type of thing can be done with subdirectories, when piping the output of TREE into UTIL. Since the DOS TREE command lists all of the subdirectories on disk, UTIL can easily read these in, and build any command from the subdirectory names that it receives. This can be useful for a variety of purposes, but it is especially nice for doing BACKUPs of a hard disk. As an example, I have a hard disk and use the JET program from Tall Tree Systems to do speedy backups to floppy. The problem with JET is that you must specify every subdirectory (JET can only handle one at a time). Well, who wants to look at the output of the DOS TREE command to figure out how to build all of the required JET commands? Let UTIL do it for you! C>TREE | UTIL PIPE pause $ ^ jet $ a: /era/d > bakup.bat Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 32 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ C>BAKUP TREE sends it's output to the screen. We pipe this into UTIL with the PIPE option. UTIL can tell that what it is getting is the output of TREE, and will locate the subdirectory names which come out of TREE. What follows the PIPE command are the commands to generate for each of the subdirectories, and the $ is where the subdirectory name is to be inserted. Note that I am asking UTIL to generate two commands for each subdirectory name it encounters when read- ing the output of the TREE command. pause $ jet $ /era/d Everywhere the $ is located, the actual path name will be in- serted. Another example of the use of PIPE would be getting rid of some files by copying the files to floppy first (to archive), then deleting them from the hard disk. I could do the following: C>DIR | UTIL PIPE copy $ a: ^ del $ > copydel.bat C>copydel 7. Move Files Between Subdirectories (mv) 7.1 Description Moving files may be thought of as being equivalent to a standard copy followed by a delete, except that it cannot be done between different drives. But the move option is more sophisticated. It utilizes the DOS 2.x rename function, which allows renaming across subdirectories [1]. It is very fast, since no actual movement of the data is involved, merely a manipulation of a couple of directories. 7.2 Useage UTIL MV from [to] ____________ [1] This cannot be done via the RENAME command at the DOS command level Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 33 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ where "from" is the source file (the file to be moved), and "to" is optional, and is the location to which the file is to be moved. The rules for the MV operation are simple. 1. "from" is required. It must be a valid file name... use path if required 2. "to" is optional only if "from" contains a path name. The assumption made would be that you want to move a file from some subdirectory to the one you are currently in (the DOS COPY command works the same way). 3. It is an error to MV a file to a directory where a file by that name already exists. If you try this, you will be alerted to this fact via a beep, and a box will appear in the middle of the screen showing you the directory information of the source and destination files. You will be offered the several self-explanatory options for how the program should proceed. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 34 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 8. CHMOD (Change file mode) This option of UTIL can only be invoked from the DOS prompt at this time. It is not an option you will use very often, but it can come in handy. UTIL CHMOD filename mode(s) The supported modes are as follows: N Normal H Hidden S System R Read Only A Archive You may change the mode of a file to a combination of the above by supplying more than one mode letter in a contiguous string. For example: UTIL CHMOD test.dat RA would mark the file test.dat as read-only and set the attribute bit. Note that there is no space between the R and the A. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 35 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 9. Browsing a File (br) This facility lets you list any text file on the screen. When the screen fills, you can use the PgUp or PgDn keys to browse through the file. Browse is novel in that the scrolling is done directly from disk. No text is stored in memory, so system memory require- ments are kept low. Hit <ESC> to exit browse. Even though UTIL is probably close in size to your editor or word processor, files can be viewed much faster using BROWSE than your editor or word processor. This is due to the fact that the BROWSE option does not attempt to load your entire file before it begins showing it to you on the screen. Instead, it lists lines of text to the screen as they are read from disk. You are allowed full screen paging through the file as it is being viewed. Note that this same option is available in the SD option of UTIL (see below). Also see the decription of browse contained within the SD documentation for some additional features which are available under this browse too (especially the printing of a part of the file you are browsing). The BROWSE option of UTIL is exactly the same as the browse you get under SD. All features available under that option are avail- able here. 10. Keyboard Redefinition (kb) Allows redefining the keys on the keyboard. DOS 2.0 provides for keyboard redefinition, but only in a limited sense. The DOS manual confuses many about how the keys on the keyboard can actually be redefined. In order for key redefinition to occur, you must have a file called CONFIG.SYS on your diskette when you boot up. For key redefinition to occur, you need only one line in the CONFIG.SYS file. This line is: DEVICE = ANSI.SYS ANSI.SYS is a file which was supplied to you when you bought DOS 2.0. In addition to the CONFIG.SYS file, you also need the ANSI.SYS file on your boot diskette. I mentioned earlier that key redefinition was limited under DOS 2.0. This is because some crazy person thought that you didn't need more than 190 bytes (for some strange reason) to redefine all of the keys you wanted to. This isn't much, believe me. There is a good, easy fix given by Ronald Parsons in the September '83 issue of PC Magazine on pp586-587. Do it, unless IBM comes out with a new release of DOS which corrects this stupid limitation. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 36 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ You will be propmted to hit the key to be redefined. Hit the key. Next, you will be asked to type in what you want the key to be defined to. If you want to reset they key back to what it was, hit <ESC> <ENTER> (the ESC key and then the ENTER key). If you want to define the key to a string, type in the string. An example follows. Suppose you are constantly running a program which asks a lot of stupid, redundant questions . Just to get into your program, you need to answer "Y" to 14 dumb questions. Use UTIL to redefine a key. Say you want to turn F1 into 14 "Y" answers. When UTIL prompts you to redefine the key you just hit, the in the follow- ing : YYYYYYYYYYYYYY <ENTER> Now, when running your program, hitting F1 answers 14 stupid questions for you. Now, let's say you have another frequently used program which requires 3 responses upon initialization, the answers to which rarely change. You might want to assign the answers to F2. In response to the UTIL prompt, type the follow- ing: Y^BIG^BOOB^ The ^ tells DOS to do an <ENTER>, by the way. At least it tells UTIL to tell DOS to do an <ENTER>. Anyway, the ^ means <ENTER>. When your program got to the point where it was asking you these 3 magic questions, you need only hit F2 to provide the responses. This option of UTIL is most useful in situations where the user would not normally have redefined his keyboard, but finds himself repeating the same things over and over. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 37 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 11. A Crude Database (db) 11.1 Description The db option of UTIL provides for a very crude data base capability. The db option functions in a retrieval mode only, and does not allow the adding or deleting of items from the data base. 11.2 Useage The data base is created by you in the root directory of your default drive. You must name the file DATABASE, and the file must be in ASCII format. Your data base entries each occupy one line in the file DATABASE. Suppose you want to have a database with phone numbers in it for handy access. Begin by putting the following in a file called DATABASE. Ralph Itup ^ 111-2222 I.M. Horny ^ 123-6969 I. Gaveattheoffice ^ 444-0000 Ben Dover ^ 553-9988 The ^'s you see tell UTIL to perform a carriage return. Thus, when the first entry was printed to the screen by UTIL, you would see Ralph Itup 111-2222 Thus, the imbedded ^ signs are used purely for neatness on output display, and are put there at your discretion. To search for an item in the data base, you must supply a group of characters to search for. This can be done from the command line (when you invoke UTIL), or UTIL will prompt you for it. To find the phone number of Ralph Itup, you could do any of the following: UTIL db Ralph UTIL db ralph UTIL db alp UTIL db up etc. Whatever you provide to search for, UTIL will present you with anything it finds that matches. Note that the search is case insensitive, i.e. you needn't remember whether you entered an upper or lower case letter in the data base. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 38 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ As was alluded to earlier, UTIL presently only retrieves informa- tion from the data base you created by hand. You must use your text editor to modify, add or delete items from the data base itself. Nevertheless, the db option of UTIL is great for the information you need quick access to all of the time (such as phone numbers and addresses). Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 39 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 12. Switching Between Screens (mo and co) Allows you to easily switch from one display to the other. If you are using the monochrome monitor and wish to use the color monitor, type in A>UTIL CO This will make your active display the color screen. Type in A>UTIL MO to switch back to the monochrome monitor. As with all other commands in UTIL, this command may be entered directly from the DOS prompt, or from the menu (gotten by invok- ing UTIL with no options). Even though the DOS MODE command supports switching screens, it was felt that this was still a useful option, since if you have UTIL, you needn't haul MODE around too. Plus, UTIL does not terminate and remain resident, as does MODE. 13. Screen Copy (sc) This option copies the contents of the screen you are currently working on to either the other screen (in a two screen system), or to a disk file. Invoke the screen copy option as follows: UTIL SC[F] [filename] For example, UTIL SC..............Screen copied to the other screen UTIL SCF.............Screen copied to file CRT$$$ (default) UTIL SCF SCREEN......Screen copied to file SCREEN If you have a two screen system, the first form of the command is probably the most convenient. If not, use the form where the screen is copied to a file. Note: If you have specified to UTIL that you have a RAM disk via UT*RD (see Appendix A), UTIL will write CRT$$$ to the RAM disk. The usefullness of this option is typefied in this example. You have just run the assembler on a file. The assembler reported 5 errors which you must fix. To fix these errors, you must get into your editor, which erases the screen that the assembler printed the error messages on. Previously, you had to write down or remember the error messages. Now, merely typing Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 40 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ UTIL SC will copy the screen with the error messages over to the other monitor, where you can refer to them after you call up your editor. And, without a second monitor, you would probably want to write the screen to a disk file. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 41 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 14. Type Directly to Printer (ty) This option provides a very raw interface between your computer and your printer. It was meant to closely simulate using a regular typewriter. It is a useful option in situations where you want to bang a note or memo out quickly, and would rather not call up a text editor or wordprocessor. The line you type is buffered in memory, and you may edit it with the arrow keys and Ins and Del while typeing in the line. When <ENTER> is hit, the line is sent to the printer. When you have typed all you need to type to the printer, hit <ESC> to exit. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 42 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 15. Appendix A (Environment Variables) Program UTIL is one of the few programs on the market which actually makes use of the environment area supplied with DOS 2.0. The environment is an area of memory set aside to hold informa- tion which programs may need. Since the area resides in memory, it is much easier and much quicker to access by a program than a disk file containing similar information. As was stressed throughout the UTIL documentation, all environ- ment variables should be set when you boot up via the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Once set at system boot, they will always be available to application routines (like UTIL). All environment variables used by UTIL begin with UT*. This was done to differintiate variables needed by UTIL from other vari- ables in the environment. The environment variables used by UTIL are as follows: UT*ED The name of your favorite editor, as it is to be in- voked by UTIL. UT*WP The name of your favorite wordprocessor, as it is to be invoked by UTIL. UT*SP The "special" program(s) you like to run on files. UT*OP Options for the running of UTIL UT*NA If you have renamed UTIL, put the new name of the .EXE file here. Leave off the .EXE. If UTIL was renamed to DO, put the following in your environment: SET UT*NA=DO Supplying UT*NA is required for returning to the program after exiting it (e.g. to edit or wordprocess a file). UT*RD If your system has a RAM disk, tell UTIL what drive letter your RAM disk is here. When UTIL exits with a list of selected programs to run, UTIL currently builds a batch file called DO$$$.BAT with the required com- mands in it. It then exits back to DOS and executes the DO$$$.BAT file. If you have a RAM disk, and tell UTIL about it through the UT*RD parameter in the environment, UTIL will build and execute DO$$$.BAT much faster. Additionally, it will keep your directories from being cluttered with Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 43 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ alot of DO$$$.BAT files. There is an advantage to creating this DO$$$.BAT file. Having it around is most useful when a command con- tained within the file bombs for one reason or another. You may call it into your editor, and edit out the commands it has already performed, then reinvoke it. UT*OP Options for UTIL. The options available are LC, BW, VE, CC ,NS and BM. If you want to use more than one option, seperate them by commas (e.g. SET UT*OP=BW,VE) LC will cause UTIL to list directory entries in lower case rather than the default of upper case. BW is used generally when your monitor is driven by the color card, but is not a COLOR monitor. On some B&W monitors, the display can be unreadable, due to UTIL's attempts to output text in color. Use the BW option if the display is unreadable. VE will make UTIL perform a VERIFY on each COPY opera- tion. CC instructs UTIL to inform you if the result of a COPY operation would overwrite an existing file, and to give you alternatives other than writing over the file. NS tells UTIL not to bother to compute the number of remaining bytes on disk drives whose drive letter is C or larger. Hard disk owners will find that this option makes UTIL a little faster when running the SD option. BM tells UTIL that you have a lot of memory in your computer (say, over 400K). When you tell UTIL to run a program from within the sorted directory (by hitting a >), if you have specified the BM option, UTIL will remain resident in memory while invoking the program you specify. Otherwise, UTIL will remove itself from memory to make room for the program you wish to run. For environment variables UT*ED, UT*WP and UT*SP, the actual format by which you specify the variables to the environment is SET (env variable) = <expr> where <expr> is any valid expression as detailed in Appendix E, and (env variable) can be UT*ED, UT*WP or UT*SP. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 44 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 16. Appendix B (RAM Disk) As has been mentioned previously, UTIL is most effective when kept in RAM disk. The newer IBM Personal Computers have room for 256K on the motherboard. This means that your system can easily have a full 256K at a low cost, without having to purchase an add-on card. If you have 256K on the motherboard, part of this can be set aside for a RAM disk. The software for creating a RAM disk is plentiful. The QuadRam software works even without the QuadRam card. If the software allows you to specify the size of the RAM disk you wish to be created, you need only 64K for UTIL. On a 256K system, this leaves around 190K for application work, which should be more than enough for most applications. Note, however, that anytime you run a program which terminates and stays resident (e.g. DOS print and mode commands), your available memory is decreased. So look out... 128K is about right for UTIL. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 45 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 17. Appendix C (Specifying the path) Under DOS 2.0, you can specify (via the PATH command) the order in which DOS is to look for a file when specified from the DOS command prompt. The directory in which UTIL is contained should be specified in the PATH, generally as one of the first directories specified in the PATH. The PATH is generally set in your AUTOEXEC file when you boot your machine. Once the PATH is set, it needn't be respecified to DOS. 17.1 E, W and alt-S Useage Because of DOS 2.0, the tree structured directory system is now available to users. This is wonderful on a hard disk system, but is not quite as useful on floppy systems. UTIL gives you the capability to invoke programs upon your files, merely by hitting a key while the cursor points at a file. Since many commercially available programs do not support subdirec- tories, there is generally no easy way to invoke a program from one subdirectory which is to access data in another subdirectory. With UTIL, we attempt to make this easy for you. The advantage you have is that a program may reside anywhere, as long as DOS has been told (via the PATH command) where to find it. One generally builds a PATH for DOS which points to his most popular drives and subdirectories, in the order in which DOS is most likely to find the program. Thus, when a command is given to DOS, DOS searches for the command through the PATH you specified. If you have RAM disk, and keep UTIL in it, specify this in your PATH. For example, if your RAM disk was drive D, you should have D:\ in your PATH first. Note that when a single drive is specified in the path, a backslash (\) should follow the drive specification. Similarly, if you have a hard disk system, load UTIL into the root directory of your hard disk, and specify the root (e.g. C:\) as the first thing in your PATH command. If you have a hard disk and a RAM disk, and you keep UTIL in your RAM disk, specify your RAM disk as the first thing in your PATH. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 46 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 17.2 Programs Using Overlays If your wordprocessor or text editor are the kind which call in overlays, this can cause a few problems. The DOS PATH command will find the main program. UTIL will place you in the subdirec- tory of the file you wish to be editing. But, when the program goes to load the overlay in, it often cannot find it! My solution to this dilema was to buy a utility program called FILEPATH from SDA Associates in San Jose, CA. Give them a ring at (408)281-7747. What FILEPATH does is that you give it (at machine boot), a subdirectory list similar to what you give the DOS PATH command. Whenever a pre-DOS 2.0-type file open occurs, FILEPATH searches the through the list of subdirectories you gave it, looking for the file being opened. You can be reasonably sure that your program uses pre-DOS 2.0 file opens if it does not support path names in a file name. If this is the case, FILEPATH will most likely work for you. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 47 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 18. Appendix D (Helpful Tips) * If you run UTIL and see funny characters on your screen (back pointing arrows, screens writing over each other), you prob- ably have not installed ANSI.SYS in your CONFIG.SYS file. This is trivial, and is described elsewhere in this manual. More people forget this than anything else. * If you have a hard disk, keep UTIL in the root directory, and specify this at boot via the PATH command, e.g. PATH=C:\ If you have a hard disk and a RAM disk, put UTIL in your RAM disk, and have the hard disk be your default drive. Specify the RAM disk first in your PATH, then the hard disk. For example, if your hard disk was drive C and your RAM disk was drive B, you would say: PATH=B:\;C:\ followed by whatever other subdirectories DOS should search when you give it a command from the DOS prompt. * File I/O with UTIL (and most other programs) works best if you have a line in your CONFIG.SYS file specifying a large number for BUFFERS (10 or 15 is a good choice). This will make file I/O much faster (for all your programs, not just UTIL). * If you have trouble reading the output of UTIL, it is most likely due to useing a B&W monitor with the color card (e.g. a non-color monitor). Try SET UT*OP=BW at the DOS prompt. Then, put this in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 48 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 19. Appendix E (Expressions) Wherever you see <expr> in the UTIL documentation, this stands for "expression", which is covered in this appendix. Keep in mind that an <expr> is discussed only in conjunction with file names, like when UTIL is pointing at one on the screen in SD, or in the PIPE option of UTIL. In general, the command structure is as follows. Square brackets surround items which are optional. [.] command [options] $ [options] [^] The hat (^) allows you to specify multiple commands on the same line. When UTIL builds the instructions for execution, the ^ is where UTIL will put a carriage return (just as though you had typed it in yourself). Following the hat (^), you may have another command, structured exactly the same as the first one. The $ is where you want the file name to be inserted. The op- tional period as the very first character of each command tells UTIL to rip off the file's extension (if one exists). Let us say that we want to generate a command like this: WORDIX -depson letter.wdx FILENAME.EXT Here, we wish the file name to be inserted in its entirety (ex- tension and all). We would specify this to UTIL as WORDIX -depson letter.wdx $ UTIL will replace the $ with the complete file name. In some cases, it is desireable to supply the file name without an exten- sion. You may do this by putting a period as the first letter of the command, e.g. . WORDIX -depson letter.wdx $ Sometimes, you will want to run several programs on the same file. This is easy. That is what the ^'s are used for. The ^'s tell UTIL to begin a new line. Let's say we wanted to generate two commands for a given file name. For <expr>, we would supply the following COPY $ A: ^ DEL $ ^ to have UTIL generate the commands COPY $ A: DEL $ Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 49 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ Note that UTIL will not generate the commands with a dollar sign in them... it will substitute a file name in place of the dollar sign. So we see that an <expr> can be several commands, each seperated by the hat (^) symbol. And we have seen how UTIL can be told to rip off the extension from a file. There is one other way an <expr> is dealt with. The very last command in an <expr> must be followed by a hat symbol (^) unless the last command in the <expr> contains a $. If it does not, the file name will be appended anyway. This allows you to specify e.g. "BASIC" all by itself and still have that turn into a command which was "BASIC" followed by a file name. Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 50 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 20. Appendix F (DOS Pipes and Redirection) Every program has what is called "standard input" and "standard output". The "standard input" is generally the keyboard, while the "standard output" is generally the screen. This is pretty eay concept to grasp, right? Well, one of the really nice features of DOS 2.x is the ability to "redirect" both standard input and standard output. This simply means sending what a program considers it's standard ouput elsewhere (besides the screen), or getting it's input from some- where else besides the keyboard. This is where the concept of pipes and redirection comes in. Let us say that you want to get a directory. You type DIR, right? Well, if the directory is long, it will quickly scroll off of the screen.... probably before you had a chance to view it all. Well, you could have said DIR > LPT1 which tells DOS to perform the directory, but rather than send it's output to the screen, send it to LPT1 (the printer). The > sign tells DOS to consider what follows it as the "standard output" (thus sending the output of DIR to the printer, rather than the screen). The PIPE operation (denoted by the vertical bar, | ) can be thought of to work as follows: the program being run on the left of the PIPE operator connects it's output to the input of the program on the right of the operator. Thus, when you do TREE | UTIL PIPE commands what TREE was sending to the screen is now seen as the keyboard input of UTIL. UTIL knows what the output of TREE looks like, and can pull off all of the subdirectory names (which is exactly what it does). Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 51 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 21. Technical Info (may be useful) Several users have asked me if I can make UTIL terminate and stay resident, callable at a keystroke like so many other programs on the market. Well, I will not make it stay resident for the reason many people are finding with several of these routines.... the routines often conflict, causing system hangups, and a whole suite of problems for the user. In the interest of speed, the COPY operation in SD will not check free disk space on drives labeled C or higher. We assume that drives A and B are floppies, and free disk space will be computed before attempting each file copy to these drives. Another criteria for determining whether or not we will compute free disk space prior to performing the copy operation is that if the initial free space calculation is less than 1 million bytes, we will recompute free disk space prior to each file copy. The MV option of UTIL cannot move files between drives. MV is actually an extension of the DOS RENAME function (and is a sup- ported DOS function). Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 52 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Program UTIL .............................................. 5 1.1 Introduction .......................................... 5 1.2 Disclaimer ............................................ 5 2. Installing UTIL ........................................... 7 2.1 RAM Disk .............................................. 8 2.2 The PC XT ............................................. 8 2.3 For both machines ..................................... 8 2.4 Changing .EXE Name .................................... 8 3. Summary of Utilities ...................................... 10 4. Sorted Directory (sd) ..................................... 12 4.1 Introduction to Sorted Directories .................... 12 4.2 Resorting the Directory (A,X,D or -) .................. 13 4.2.1 Alphabetic Sort (A) .............................. 13 4.2.2 Extension Sort (X) ............................... 14 4.2.3 Date Sort (D) .................................... 14 4.2.4 Inverse Date Sort (-) ............................ 14 4.3 Going Through (Sub)directories ........................ 14 4.3.1 Column Cursor Movement (f2,f4,f6,f8 and f10) ..... 14 4.3.2 Cursor to the First Directory Entry (Home) ....... 14 4.3.3 Cursor to the Last Directory Entry (End) ........ 14 4.3.4 Cursor to File Beginning with Letter (/) ......... 15 4.3.5 Up a Level (.) ................................... 15 4.3.6 Last Directory (L) ............................... 15 4.3.7 View a Different Drive (V) ....................... 15 4.3.8 Immediately View Another Directory (I) ........... 15 4.3.9 Move into a Displayed Subdirectory (<ENTER>) ..... 16 4.3.10 Return to Home Directory (H) .................... 16 4.3.11 Reread Directory (!) ............................ 16 4.4 Screen Copy (S) ....................................... 17 4.5 Printing a File (P) ................................... 17 4.6 Browsing a File (B or alt-B) .......................... 17 4.7 Find String (F) ....................................... 19 4.8 Invoking Your Editor (E or alt-E) ..................... 20 4.9 Invoking Your Wordprocessor (W or alt-W) .............. 21 4.10 Help (alt-H or F1) ................................... 21 4.11 Operations Affecting Files ........................... 22 4.11.1 Delete a File (alt-D) ........................... 22 4.11.2 Copy a File (alt-C) ............................. 22 4.11.3 Move Files (alt-M) .............................. 23 4.11.4 Tag With DOS Commands (<) ....................... 23 4.11.5 Special Command, User Defined (alt-S) ........... 24 4.11.6 Rename File (alt-R) ............................. 25 4.11.7 Global Operations (*) ........................... 26 4.11.8 Undo (alt-U) .................................... 26 4.11.9 Execute Deletes, Copies, Moves (alt-x) .......... 27 4.12 Repeat last command (=) .............................. 27 Printed December 19, 1984 Documentation - 53 - UTIL Version 2.1 _________________________________________________________________ 4.13 Exiting UTIL ......................................... 27 4.13.1 Plain Old Exit (<ESC>) .......................... 27 4.13.2 Remain In Subdirectory Being Viewed (Q) ......... 28 4.13.3 Exit UTIL and return after running DO$$$ (F3) ... 28 4.13.4 Supply DOS Command(s) (>) ....................... 28 5. Command Summary for SD .................................... 29 6. The UTIL Pipe (PIPE) ...................................... 31 7. Move Files Between Subdirectories (mv) .................... 32 7.1 Description ........................................... 32 7.2 Useage ................................................ 32 8. CHMOD (Change file mode) .................................. 34 9. Browsing a File (br) ...................................... 35 10. Keyboard Redefinition (kb) ............................... 35 11. A Crude Database (db) .................................... 37 11.1 Description .......................................... 37 11.2 Useage ............................................... 37 12. Switching Between Screens (mo and co) .................... 39 13. Screen Copy (sc) ......................................... 39 14. Type Directly to Printer (ty) ............................ 41 15. Appendix A (Environment Variables) ....................... 42 16. Appendix B (RAM Disk) .................................... 44 17. Appendix C (Specifying the path) ......................... 45 17.1 E, W and alt-S Useage ................................ 45 17.2 Programs Using Overlays .............................. 46 18. Appendix D (Helpful Tips) ................................ 47 19. Appendix E (Expressions) ................................. 48 20. Appendix F (DOS Pipes and Redirection) ................... 50 21. Technical Info (may be useful) ........................... 51 Printed December 19, 1984