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1990-06-30
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ADULATE.EXE - the program that panders to your ego!
Author .... : Larry T Cobb
Created ... : 13:48 Fri 10 Mar 1989
Last Update : 5/24/89 at 14:35:00
Release ... : 1.8
Executive Summary
In this rat-race of a world it good to have someone (or even something)
that you can rely on for a bit of obsequious grovelling. So, if you
haven't got any sycophantic minions, you can use this program to force
your poor, unsuspecting PC to bolster your ego. Call it from your
AUTOEXEC.BAT for a cringing start to the day's computing, or type
"ADULATE 20" for a boost during a really bad session. You'll soon be
on top of the world again!
Using the Random Adulation Program:
Words from four lists of adulating words or phrases are combined
randomly to form a composite adulation. The C standard random number
generator is used to select from the lists. It is seeded differently
each run using the system time, so each run will produce an
unpredictable phrase or set of phrases.
Usage: ADULATE [-n or /n] [count]
If the option '-n' or '/n' is present, the phrase begins with the
word "o" (lower case) and is not terminated with a newline.
Otherwise it begins with upper case "O" and is terminated with a
full stop and newline. (These are the defaults where no '.fmt'
file is in use - see below.)
The count value is a decimal number of phrases to be produced. A
default count of 1 is used if the count parameter is not present or
evaluates to zero or a negative number.
Arbitrary formats can be specified at run time by including them in a
text file having the name 'adulate.fmt'. To be used, this must be in
the current default directory. Each line of the file represents an
alternative format for the output phrases. These are read into two
lists in memory, one for formats for use in normal mode, and one for
formats for the '-n' or '/n' option. If these lists have more than one
entry, a format for each adulation is selected at random from the
appropriate list.
If the format file contains no entries for a particular list, the
default format for that mode is used. Otherwise the default formats
are discarded when a format file is in use.
The format of each line is:
<format_mode><format_string>
where <format_mode> is the single character 'F' or 'f', signifying
that the format specification is to be used in normal mode or with the
'n' option respectively. If <format_mode> is omitted, it is taken to
be 'F'.
<format_string> is the wanted format specified as for 'printf'. The
special character specifications '\n', '\t', '\b', '\r','\f' and '\\'
are recognised, (standard C notation). Single and double quote
characters may be included without being escaped since they are not
used to delimit the format string.
Note:
1) The format string should contain exactly one '%s' specification
for each of the component word lists, or else operation is
undefined. No other field specifiers should be included.
2) If the <format_mode> letter is omitted, the <format_string>
should not begin with 'F' or 'f' or else the first letter of the
string will be taken to be the <format_mode> and stripped from
the <format_string>.
3) If the format file is created using a word processor, make sure
that no formatting characters are left in the file.
Examples:
Format: FWhat is your desire, %s %s of the %s %s?\n
Phrase: What is your desire, unique wonder of the snappy retort?
Format: Hail, %s %s of the %s %s!\n
Phrase: Hail, leafy keeper of the mighty East!
Format: fsalutations, %s %s of the %s %s
Phrase: salutations, valiant leader of the unfamiliar palindrome
[N.B. this last phrase would have no terminating newline]
Copyright Larry T Cobb, 1989
CompuServe id: 100016,421
You are free to copy and distribute this program provided that no
charge, of any kind, is made for it, the disk, or distribution. Also,
this file must be included with the program and the whole must be
distributed unaltered. Any other arrangement requires the author's
written permission.