Software Vault: The Gold Collection

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Text File | 1993-05-13 | 10KB | 331 lines

CONVERT Copyright (c) 1989 by Tony Kyle All Rights Reserved Released to Public Domain March 1989 PKXARC, PKUNPAK and PKZIP are copyrighted and Traded Marked by PKWare, Inc. CONVERT (c) 1989 Page -2- With PKWare's latest release, PKZIP and PKUNZIP, the users of bulletin boards, and shareware in general, are left with a problem. Do we take the immense task of converting from PKXARC or PKPAK ARC formats to ZIP, or do we live with the possibility of becoming obsolete. The process itself is not complicated. Un-compress the files, one archive at a time, then convert to the new format. Batch files can even be written to ease the pain and boredom that results. However, would it not be better and easier to be able to CONVERT whole disks or sub-directories at a time? A program that could be used with either PKXARC (tm) or PKUNPAK (tm). CONVERT is just the program for this task. After the lawsuit brought by SEA, Inc. against PKWare, Inc. in Wisconsin this past summer (1988), it was not a question if PKWare would change, or even when. That was all spelled out in the out-of-court agreement reached by the two parties. All that was left, is how is the average user going to be affected by the change. In Oklahoma City, one BBS has started the process of changing from ARCs to ZIPs. With 30 some odd disks in ARC format, I did not relish the task of hand converting from one format to the other. I wrote CONVERT to be used by anyone who has a number of disks in the old format and desires to change to the new format. I have converted all of my disks, and even files on my hard drive using this program without experiencing any problems from its use. Before entrusting your entire collection of ARC files to CONVERT, please take the time to test it on some practice disks. In other words, copy a couple of your normal archive file disks to blank floppies and then run CONVERT on them to ensure that the program CONVERT (c) 1989 Page -3- is working properly. There is always the possibility that the program could have become garbled during the download process or may just not work with your hardware/software combination. CONVERT is a command line driven utility. I do not seek any charges for use of the program. In other words, plain and simple, IT'S FREE. The programmer does not take any responsibility for losses or damages brought about by the use of this program, either real or punitive, loss of earnings, savings or any other losses that could result from the careless or inappropriate use of this software. This program is provided AS-IS, with no warranty available to the end user. The user has and will bear sole responsibility for the use of this program. If there are problems, notify me, with a complete description of your system, the hardware and software used, including version numbers and what, if any error codes you receive, either from your system or from the program. I will make every attempt to reproduce the problems on my machine in order to correct any program problems. The program does not erase any files until the whole disk or sub- directory is CONVERTed. If enough space is not provided on the work drive, you could lose the files on the source drive/directory. However, if you give it a sub-directory that is either not present on the drive specified, or have mis-spelled the directory's name, the program will abort without doing anything. As I stated earlier, the program is command-line driven. To use, you would enter at the DOS prompt: CONVERT # Drive:[\Sub-directory] # is 1 for PKUNPAK 2 for PKXARC (This is required) Drive is the source drive for the archived files (This is required) Directory is the source directory, if any, for the archived files (This is optional) The portion between the brackets ([..]) is optional. If you only use the root directory of your drives, then you need not specify a directory. However, if you use your hard drive like a file cabinet, and each sub-directory is a folder, then you would specify where CONVERT is to find the archived files for processing. CONVERT will also place the processed files back into the specified directory when it is done. CONVERT (c) 1989 Page -4- There are some program requirements that must be met before you can properly utilize CONVERT. The first is, the program creates two (2) sub-directories. One is called FROMARC, the other TOZIP. If by chance, you have a directory on your drive with these names, you will need to change your directory's names before and while using CONVERT. Second, the program creates two (2) small, temporary files called TEMPCD and TEMP.DIR. TEMPCD is used to store the information about the current directory. This is necessary for the program, as CONVERT will return to the starting directory when it is completed. TEMP.DIR is a file holding the directory listing of the disk/directory being processed by the program. By using a text file with the filenames stored in it, CONVERT can work unattended. Third, PKUNPAK (if you are using PKUNPAK), PKXARC (if you are using PKXARC), and PKZIP (this is required) MUST be in the pathway for your system. Fourth, the hard drive memory requirements depend on the type of disks you have your archives stored on. If your files are on the hard drive, then you should allot an amount triple to the size of the largest directory being CONVERTed. If you are using floppies, then the space required on the hard drive is about double to triple the amount of the floppy being used. For 360K floppies, allot 1 meg of hard drive space. For 720K disks, allot 2 to 3 meg, and for 1.2 or 1.44 meg disks, allot 4 to 6 megabytes of hard drive space. The reasons for the memory requirements are simple. CONVERT does not write the processed file back to the drive or directory, until all files have been processed. CONVERT uses the directory, TOZIP, to store the processed files. After the ARCed files have been processed, CONVERT erases all of the files with the extension of ARC off of the source drive and/or directory, then copies the ZIP files over. For exampled: You use 360K disks for archived files. On the 360K disk, you have used 280 or 300K. The largest file de- compresses to 400K. The files, all ZIPed, account for 260 to 290K plus the space that was required to process them, in this case approximately 400K for the largest de-compressed file. Total space used would be 460 to 490K. Some files take more, others less. However, by allowing for extra space, you will avoid the heartache of receiving the "Insufficient Memory", message, which could result in loss of files. Again, I converted over 30 disks without a loss. I pack my disks as tight as possible, leaving, in at least 2 cases, no free space on the floppy. CONVERT (c) 1989 Page -5- When you convert, you will actually create some free space, as the ZIP programs, with software switches already set by CONVERT, will pack your files even tighter than PKARC could. The switches are set for PKZIP as follows: PKZIP -ea4 -eb4 -m The "-ea4" and "-eb4" allow for the tighter compression. The "- m" allows for the processed files to be "moved", so there is no need to for CONVERT to delete these files. For more information, you should probably read the documentation that comes with PKWare's products. It gives a much fuller explanation than I could possibly give.