The Business Master (4th Edition)

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ The Business Master (4th Edition) / The Business Master - 4th Edition.iso / files / utilfile / deletes / rdel.txt < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1994-02-09 | 12.1 KB | 256 lines

RDEL Recursive DELete Utility By Joseph M. Morgan RDEL Table of Contents Copyright and User Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 RDEL - Recursive DELete Utility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 RDEL - How To Do It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 /s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 /x . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 /v . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 What RDEL Does. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Other Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Installing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 History & Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Future Support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Cost & Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Copyright and User Information These programs and this documentation is the property of Joseph M. Morgan. You may freely copy and distribute this software and its documentation for non-commercial and non-governmental use as long as for any given program, the program and it's documentation are copied and distributed together. You may not distribute the software without the documentation or the documentation without the software. Please send all suggestions, inquiries, and other correspondence to: Joseph M. Morgan 9045 Kingston Rd. #1804 Shreveport, LA 71118 Disclaimer These utilities, their associated documentation and the media on which they are distributed are distributed as is, with no warranty either explicit or implied. Even though every attempt has been made to provide high-quality, accurate information, this documentation may contain omissions or errors. There is no guarantee, either explicit or implied, that this program will work properly on any given computer. In no event shall Joseph M. Morgan be held liable in any way for any damages of any kind to include lost profits of any amount, lost savings of any amount, or other incidental or consequential damages of any kind arising, for any reason, from the use, misuse, or inability to use these utility programs and/or their associated documentation even if Joseph M. Morgan has been advised of the possibility or occurrence of such damages. If the program is defective in any way, you, the user, assume all responsibility and costs of all necessary repairs and/or adjustments and/or servicing of any kind. The distribution rights and, if applicable, registration cost are all subject to change or withdrawal without prior notification of any kind. The contents of the program documentation may be in error or inaccurate and, therefore, is subject to change at all times without prior notification of any kind. If you, the user, reside in an area where local laws of any kind including city, county or parish, state or other local laws that either explicitly or implicitly require Joseph M. Morgan to bear responsibility or liability of any kind resulting from the use, misuse, or inability to use these programs and their associated documentation, you, the user, are hereby not allowed to use these programs or their associated documentation, or any other program and/or its associated documentation produced by Joseph M. Morgan for any reason or purpose on any computer or equipment either owned or not owned by you, the user. Use of any one of these programs constitutes full agreement with the conditions of this disclaimer by you, the user, and you hereby accept all responsibility for use of these programs and their associated documentation. RDEL - Recursive DELete Utility Purpose Did you ever want to delete every file with the .BAK extension on your hard drive, no matter where it was? Imagine the time you'd waste searching and deleting each one. Even if you use a file finder and searched for *.BAK, how long would it take you to get into each directory and delete them? And if you use a file manager, again, even with the file specification set to *.BAK, to mark and delete every *.BAK would take some time. RDEL to the rescue! RDEL is short for Recursive DELete utility. What this means to non-computer types is that RDEL searches from the current working directory, or the directory you specify, through every sub-directory looking for and deleting every file matching the file specification you give it. RDEL can even find and delete read-only, system, and hidden files, even if they are in hidden sub-directories! Requirements RDEL requires DOS 2.11 or higher to work. RDEL doesn't check the version, and I don't know if it will work on a version earlier than that, but I trust my compiler's technical documentation, and I couldn't find a computer running anything less than 2.11 on which to test it! If you're using some version earlier than that, try it. If it works, the first thing to do is to let me know. At the very least, I can correct my documentation. The next thing you need to do if you're using a DOS version less than 2.11 is to UPGRADE!!! RDEL - How To Do It With all utilities I write, you get help by entering the program with no arguments on the command line. What you see is a Reader's Digest version of this documentation. RDEL requires at least two command line arguments: rdel [/s /x /v] filespec The "filespec" is any valid DOS file specification. Note that RDEL will delete every file that matches that file specification in the current working directory and every sub-directory below it. The optional switches are described as follows: /s This switch tells RDEL to remove all empty sub-directories within the tree as it works. /x This switch tells RDEL to look for read-only, hidden and system files. Be careful using this switch as no file meeting the specification is safe from RDEL. RDEL nails 'em! /v This turns OFF a verify flag. Normally, RDEL does it's work safely, politely asking permission prior to deleting anything. But, there is an option to turn OFF that flag causing RDEL to go on killing everything is sight that matches the file specification. Note that even if you turn OFF the verify flag, RDEL will ALWAYS ask permission before deleting read-only, system, and hidden files. What RDEL Does RDEL takes off by first testing your command line. If you have turned OFF the verify flag, RDEL ensures that you didn't make a mistake, giving you the opportunity to turn the verify flag ON before going on. After that first question, RDEL begins in your current directory looking for all files matching the file specification. It then goes through each sub-directory and each sub-directory under those looking for files. As RDEL works, it tells you what it is doing, telling you that such-and-such file was deleted or this- and-that sub-directory was removed. If the /x switch was used, if a file matching the file specification that is read-only and or hidden and or a system file, RDEL will display all the attributes for that file and request permission before deleting them. Other Information Installing When you get this program, there is no installation utility. In fact, RDEL is ready to run (unless, of course, you haven't un- archived it from the BBS or service from which you downloaded it). Just copy RDEL into a directory that your PATH command includes. Look in your DOS manual(s) for more information on what PATH does. History & Direction Like all other utilities I write, I first wrote RDEL because we needed something like it where I work. I was first asked to write something that would kill all backup files on a network. The backup files numbered in the hundreds, took up mega-mega-bytes, and were contained in just about every directory on the machine. So, I recognize a chance to do something useful and new, so I wrote something. We had an old utility that would kill sub- directories, but it wouldn't delete JUST the backup files. As I wrote it, I realized that if I could remove empty sub-directories, I could also provide a means to remove an entire directory tree. If you give the command: rdel /s /v /x *.* You can guarantee that everything from your current working directory down will be gone! Therefore, if you have two versions of software residing on the same computer, like we often do, and you need to get rid of the older version with one command, RDEL will zap it for you. I'm sure we aren't the only people seeking a quick and efficient way to take care of business. Don't get me wrong. If I need to delete one file or all of a particular file specification, I still use the trusty old DEL command. And, there are times when figuring out my exceptions takes longer than using a file manager. RDEL isn't intended to replace all these goodies. It's just more candy on the cake! For future versions, I am planning to provide multiple file specifications and an exception handler. If you want an exception handling delete utility, look for my program XDEL.EXE roaming around somewhere. The next version of RDEL, however, will combine the talents of these two programs into one! Any other suggestions are welcome. Just mail me a note with the address above or below, and I'll see what I can do. Future Support Future support of enhancement requests for RDEL will depend upon the number of people who respond to me regarding their use of this program. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO REGISTER OR PAY ME A DIME TO USE THIS SOFTWARE (Of course, if you feel generous ...). But, please, let me know how you are using the software, what you'd like to see it do, etc., etc. You can write to me at the address above or below. Basically, the more people who actually use it, the more demand I will see, and I will continue to support it. If enough people think my stuff is useable, I might just go ahead and shrink- wrap it! But, for right now, I want to be able to deliver the kind of stuff we have found we have needed to the rest of the world. Cost & Registration There is no cost or registration for RDEL. I am distributing the program and this documentation as FREEWARE!!! Now, THIS is how I want to make my money. I will sell the COMPLETE C SOURCE CODE for RDEL for $10.00. Just send a request and $10.00 to me at: Joseph M. Morgan 9045 Kingston Rd. #1804 Shreveport, LA 71118 Checks and cash and things that can be turned into cash will be accepted. No credit cards please. (Of course, if you'd like to send my kids to college or buy me a new house, I'll accept that too!) Be sure to include your return address and the kind of diskettes you want. I will send it the day I receive payment. You will receive a package with the latest executable version of RDEL, the latest C source code both printed AND on the diskette type and size you request. I'll hang on to your address so that if we discover a small bug or some other kind of cosmetic problem, I'll send you the corrected source FREE, up to but not including the next major version of RDEL! (Sounds like registration, doesn't it???) I'll probably even be nice enough to give you the next version's source for half-price or something if you order.<g> Whatever the case, I won't let you regret it. I'm not doing this to get rich, I just think that the program doesn't offer enough for sale, but the source does!