World of Ham Radio 1997/WOHR97_AmSoft_(1997-02-01).iso/packet/pak_32/amsoft.iii

Text File | 1997-02-01 | 18KB | 376 lines

How To Make Use of ROUTES UTILITY:  ROUTE141.EXE, ROUT141V.EXE, and SSTRI.EXE
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version 1.41   10apr95                   Freeware version notes 20jun95
                                         Mailing address current 17nov95
route141.exe:  for 80x25 line mode
rout141v.exe:  for 80x43 or 80x50 line mode
routes.bat:    you should change this bat file's contents to run only one of
               the 2 above programs

The point of this program is to be able to see who forwards to whom across
the country and around the world.  You can have a lot of fun with this set of
programs.  The more packet bulletins you download, with hierarchical routing
headers, the larger your database will become.  You'll be able to get a list
of all the BBSs any given bbs receives mail from, or forwards to, subject to
the limitations imposed by what mail reaches the bbs you use, and how much of
that mail you download.

Starting with version 1.4, ROUTES produces two types of data files.  One type
is a simple listing of "x forwards to y (date)(x held the message for z days),
y receives from x."  You then sort this type of listing and do searches on it
using ROUTES, SSTRI, SORTTEXT, and your favorite text editor.

The other type of data file produced by ROUTES is a comma-delimited file:
"x,date,z,y."  Then you can "import" this comma-delimited file into dBase or
Paradox or whatever database program you have, and use the database features
of your database program to manipulate the data.  One of the headings below
is entitled, "Using dBase IV with Comma-Delimited Files."

One caution:  if you are reading bulletins, you will build up data on who
forwards BULLETINS to whom.  You will not necessarily be collecting data on
who forwards PERSONALS to whom, except for the personals addressed to you.
There are some forwarders who only handle personals and NTS.  Since you will
only be able to read personals addressed to you (unless you violate the rules
and use someone else's callsign), your data on personals will be limited.
This limitation should be taken into consideration; it may or may not be
detrimental to your purpose in building up a database.

ROUTES will also tell you approximately how long a message 'stuck' on a bbs
before it was forwarded.  On lines which read 'x forwards to y', a number
appears in parentheses, like this:  (0)   or   (3)  meaning, respectively,
that the bbs held on to the message 0 days or 3 days before it forwarded
it to the next bbs.  This version (1.31) of ROUTES reads only the date info
on headers, not the time-of-day info, so if a message hit one bbs at 11:59pm
one night, and reached the next bbs at 12:05am (six minutes later), ROUTES
will tell you that the first bbs held on to the message for one (1) day.
If the figure in parentheses is a negative number, it's likely that some bbs
had its date/time information wrong.  So many BBSs have their system clocks
set wrong, and some BBSs don't use Zulu time, so the time-of-day info on
packet headers may be misleading and not useful.  However, if you want a
revision of ROUTES that will try to make sense of the hours-and-minutes time
info on headers, i can write that for you; drop me a line and we can nego-
tiate.  I've found that some BBSs even have the YEAR wrong on their headers:
it was, for example, 940405 and someone had it as 930405.  ROUTES will find
these errors because it will only work for 1994-2000, kick you out of the
program, and give you good hints on where in the PACKET.TXT file to look for
the error.  (Then you fix it with a text editor, delete the partially-written
files, and start over.)




How To Download Messages Properly To Use with ROUTES
----------------------------------------------------

First, when you download bulletins off your local packet bbs, read them with
the RH command, not the R command.  (FBB bbs commands may differ from this.)
For example, to read message #3145 with all the hierarchical routing headers,
you would type:

                          RH 3145      (on W0RLI, AA4RE, MSYS BBSs)

That way, the message you download will have a list of BBSs the message passed
thru, in very detailed fashion, including the full hierarchical address of
each BBS and the date and time.





Preparing the Packet.txt File
-----------------------------

Your downloaded file should be called PACKET.TXT, or if it's not, then when
you are done with the download, you should rename it at a dos prompt:

                          ren <filename> packet.txt

... because ROUTE141.EXE will look for a file called 'packet.txt' on your
disk.  If by chance your version of DOS does not have the 'ren' command, you
will have to find some other way of renaming the file.  A text editor or word
processing program might help you there.

Make sure that your download, and the renamed file PACKET.TXT, have a solid
block of hierarchical header info, for each packet.  Like this:

R:940930/0401Z @:bbs etc.
R:940930/0328Z @:bbs etc.
R:940930/0309Z @:bbs etc.
R:940930/0222Z @:bbs etc.
R:940928/2011Z @:bbs etc.     some have @:bbs etc., some have @bbs etc.
R:940928/1237Z @:bbs etc.
R:940928/1000Z @:bbs etc.
R:940927/2359Z @:bbs etc.
R:940927/2100Z @:bbs etc.
R:940927/2052Z @:bbs etc.

Previous versions of this utility required you to then use a text editor to
make sure no R: lines go past column 77 on the screen.  This is no longer
required.

However, you should load your packet.txt into a text editor and check all the
blocks of R: lines to make sure there are no blank lines in each block, and
no corrupted lines.

So ... each message should have a solid block of lines beginning with 'R:'.
If a line appears in the middle of the block, containing nonsense or garbage,
the program will interpret the garbage as a real BBS.  However, if a blank
line sneaks into the middle of the block, the program will take that to mean
a break in the forwarding chain, and you will lose a little bit of info you
would have otherwise gleaned.  So beware.





Running the Program
-------------------

SO:  Once you've prepared the packet.txt file,

YOU RUN THE PROGRAM BY TYPING 'ROUTES' at the dos prompt.

Also, a sample PACKET.TXT file is included.  I downloaded this stuff off
my local ham bbs.  I provide it here as a test file for you to practice
on; it ran just fine with this program.

Typing 'ROUTES' runs the .bat file which runs the route141.exe or the
rout141v.exe program.  Two variations of this version 1.41 are provided:
route141 and rout141v.  The latter runs in your ega43 line mode or the vga50
line mode.  If you try to use the 43/50 line variation on a 25-line screen,
text will overrun the screen and you won't be pleased with the results.  If
you have ansi.sys loaded in your system startup files, with 'mode 80,50' in
your autoexec.bat, you will have no problem running the 43/50 line mode.  If
you like the larger type of the 25-line mode, use the appropriate variation
of this version 1.41.

The program works on your PACKET.TXT file and produces a disk file called
OUTPUT.TXT.  Then, a few days later, say you've accumulated a new download of
messages and you want to add on to the end of the output.txt file.

First make sure you've gotten your OLD packet.txt file out of the way, perhaps
by renaming it packet.001 and filing it somewhere (or just leave it, renamed,
in the subdir).  Then, your new download should be re-named PACKET.TXT.

        (If your "new download" is actually a bunch of little downloads,
         you should first combine them all as follows:  move them into
         a sub-directory of their own, then combine them into ONE FILE
         by typing:  'copy *.* packet.txt'.  Then make sure the new
         packet.txt has a total number of bytes equal to the sum of all
         the files that were supposedly copied into it.  If so,  delete
         the small files.  Then move the packet.txt file into the same
         sub-directory as the ROUTES exe files, making  sure you "got
         rid of" your old packet.txt file by renaming it packet.001 or
         deleting it.)

Type 'routes' to run the program.  Your output.txt file will be added on to by
this process.

The program will ask if you want to do a search on a specific callsign.  If
you do this, another file called SEARCH.TXT will be created (or added on to).
If you want to do a search on an output.txt file without going through the
routine of working on a packet.txt file, a separate program SSTRI.EXE will do
this for you.  SSTRI is included on the disk.

The program will then ask you if you want to do a sort on the search.txt file.
You should answer 'y' to this.  The sort groups all the 'forwards to ... '
lines together, and it is on these 'forwards to' lines that you will read the
number of days the bbs held on to a message before forwarding it.

A stand-alone program, SORTTEXT.EXE, is included with this package. It will
sort up to 2000 lines of text (where each line is treated as a single
string).  It works just fine on my 486, but on my 286 it crashed with only
1800 lines.  If you have a 286 or an XT, you will have to see what maximum
file length you can sort with this program.  You can use SORTTEXT to sort the
SEARCH.TXT file when it gets really long.  Or you can use it to sort any text
file you might want to sort.  You probably don't want to use sorttext.exe on
your output.txt file, tho, because the latter file can get to be longer than
2000 lines quite easily.  Sorttext.exe will cough and die if it finds more than
2000 strings in the array.

        Here is an example of the command-line use of sorttext.exe:

        sorttext search.txt >sort.txt

        (the sorted file is written to disk as sort.txt)

        or

        sorttext search.txt >w6pw.txt           etc.


As was mentioned near the beginning of this document, ROUTES also produces a
comma-delimited file, named ROUTES.DBX.  The following section tells you how
to use routes.dbx with dBase IV; this will probably work with dBase III as
well but this was not tested.







Using dBase IV With Comma-Delimited Files
-----------------------------------------

dBase is a high-class database program which you can use to manipulate the
ROUTES data like crazy.  Here is how to incorporate the routes.dbx file
produced by ROUTES into a dBase .dbf file.

First, enter dBase like you normally would.  "Create" a new dBase file.
Define the fields as follows:

    NUM      FIELD NAME       FIELD TYPE       WIDTH      DEC      INDEX
    ---      ----------       ----------       -----      ---      -----

     1          BBS            character         32                  no
     2          DATE           character          8                  no
     3          HELD           character          2                  no
     4          FWD_TO         character         32                  no


In my ROUTES dBase file, I defined the date and the "held days" as character
fields even though they are numbers.  You should do it this way unless you
really know your way around dBase or Paradox or whatever database engine you
are using.  The date takes up only 6 width; define it 6 instead of 8 if you
want.  The decimal column I left blank, since I'm not using decimal places in
character fields.  I specified no index fields, but if you know how to use
index files, by all means use them.

Okay, so now you've got an empty dbase file.  I called mine "hambbs.dbf."
Now exit to the DOT PROMPT (in dBase IV or III).  To move your routes.dbx file
into the new hambbs.dbf, you type, at the dot prompt:

         append from routes.dbx delim

and voila! you have a nice new dBase routes database file.  (The routes.dbx
file must be in the same subdirectory as your dBase program.)  Now get rid of
routes.dbx by naming it routes.001 or just deleting it.

Now let's sort the hambbs.dbf file.  At the dot prompt, type:  'use hambbs'.
Or, type:  'assist' to get the Control Center.  Display hambbs.dbf.  Hit F10
to get the menu, then choose Organize, then choose Sort Database on Field List.
The sort order which I usually choose is this:

                  1.  BBS
                  2.  FWD_TO
                  3.  DATE

By using the above sorting order, you will end up with a listing of, e.g., all
the occurrences of bbs x forwarding to bbs y, with delays in days, by ascending
date.  If jam-ups occurred in forwarding between x and y, you will see the
dates on which the jam-ups occurred.

When dBase IV asks you for a name for the sorted file, I give it 'hambbs.srt'.
Then I exit the program, delete hambbs.dbf, then rename the hambbs.srt:

                  ren hambbs.srt hambbs.dbf

This should cover how to deal with dBase IV (and by extension, dBase III).
Paradox should accept comma-delimited files, though I have not tested this.
Any database program worth anything will accept delimited files!







Error Messages
--------------

You will get one kind of error message if you try to run ROUTES with no
packet.txt in the subdirectory.  Another kind of error message will appear if
something is not quite right with the packet.txt file.  If there are any
corrupted lines, the program will stop processing the file, and you will be
alerted on the screen to check your packet.txt file.  A bbs address and a date
will appear on the screen.  Take that info and search your packet.txt file for
that callsign.  (But remember, that callsign could appear many times in the
packet.txt file.)  Somewhere in the text, that callsign will be on or near
the line that is corrupted.  Correct the error, delete the output.txt file,
and run the program again.

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To recap, here is a list of the various text files you will have to deal with
in using these programs:

PACKET.TXT         :     This is your conglomeration of packet radio
                         downloads.  All your downloads you want to
                         work on, at one time, should be in this one
                         text file.  Old packet.txt files you are
                         finished with should be renamed packet.001,
                         packet.002, etc. to get them out of the way.

OUTPUT.TXT         :     This is the text file the program first
                         writes.  It's a listing of who forwards to
                         whom, and who receives from whom, in the
                         same order as they appeared in your downloads.
                         (The program also produces temporary files
                         t1.txt and t2.txt, but these are deleted so
                         you won't see them unless the program crashes
                         or your machine crashes.)

SEARCH.TXT         :     This is the text file the program writes, if
                         you tell it to search for a particular call-
                         sign.  There may be a lot of redundancy here,
                         and the listing will still be in the order
                         they appeared in your downloads.

SORT.TXT           :     This is the text file which ROUTES writes when
                         it sorts the search.txt file.  If you use
                         sorttext.exe to sort, you can, on the command
                         line, direct the output to sort.txt or to any
                         other file name.

ROUTES.DBX         :     This is the comma-delimited file which has all
                         the required information.  This file will prove
                         to be the most valuable of all if you have
                         dBase or Paradox.

Of these text files, output.txt will have many blank lines which you will
want to delete, especially if you want to send output.txt to the printer!
Output.txt will have hundreds of blank lines if you processed a large
packet.txt file.  Use a text editor to remove the blanks, but only if you're
going to be using output.txt later.  If you plan to run sorttext.exe on
output.txt, you should go in with a text editor and delete the blank lines,
because otherwise you may easily exceed the 2000-line limit for use of
sorttext.exe.



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A Windows version of this utility is available; if interested, please inquire
by email ([e-mail]) or snail mail to my P.O. Box below.





          ******************************************************
          *     73 de orrin @ pfeiffer in big sur       /::    *
          *       p.o. box 89, big sur ca 93920       \`o.O'   *
          *   ------------------------------------    =(___)=  *
          *      -- Non Illigitimi Carborundum --        U     *
          *                                                    *
          *  Packet   : WN1Z @ K6LY.#NOCAL.CA.USA.NA           *
          *                                                    *
          *  Internet : [e-mail]                     *
          *             WN1Z@W2XO.#SWPA.PA (gateway to         *
          *               [e-mail])                        *
          *             [e-mail]                         *
          *  Satellite: RS-12, RS-10, RS-15 (when i'm there)   *
          ******************************************************



Above info current 11/95.  If you get e-mail or postal mail returned to you as
undeliverable, such as if you receive this utility some years from now, try
this: Orrin C. Winton c/o DeFeo, 46 Seeley Road, Trumbull CT 06611.