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1993-04-01
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DISLITE
Executable file expander version 1.15
CONTENTS
WARRANTY MESSAGES
COPYING BUGS
WHAT PRICE
WHY THANKS
HOW NEW
LIMITS NOTE
TECHS WHO
WARRANTY
NONE! THIS PROGRAM COMES 'AS IS'. I CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR
ANY DAMAGE CAUSED BY THE USE OR MISUSE THIS PROGRAM. I CANNOT
GUARANTEE THE FITNESS OF THIS PROGRAM FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
IF THIS PROGRAM TURNS OUT TO BEHAVE UNEXPECTEDLY OR ERRONEOUSLY,
THE USER IS RESPONSIBLE, AND I CANNOT BE FORCED TO SUPPLY THE USER
WITH A FIX.
So, now that I have the lawyers off my back (I hope), you can forget
all that capsed crap above, and read the rest of the manual, in
which I promise not to shout anymore.
COPYING
You are free to distribute this program, provided that neither the
program nor this document are changed, and the program and this
document are kept together. Only a marginal fee may be asked for
shipment and handling when distributing. You are not allowed to
sell this program.
Now that the black-market pirates are away too, we can get to business.
WHAT
DISLITE expands all programs compressed by PKLITE to their
original image. Expanding your files has many benefits over leaving
them in their compressed state.
Most important, the uncompressed image can be examined by other
tools, such as virus scanners. A regular virus scanner can never
detect a virus embedded in a compressed file (unless by executing
and checking for suspicious actions), but on the uncompressed image
a much faster pattern matching algorithm can be used.
Then, PKLITE compressed programs can hardly be compressed any further
using "regular" file compressors like UC2, ARJ. The uncompressed files
however, usually compress quite well using these products, and normally
the result of compressing the original file is better than that
achieved when first compressing with PKLITE, and then with another
compression utility. (Though not always)
The same argument usually holds if you are using products like Stacker
or SpeedStor to enlarge your disk, which could be considered as
compression utilities on-the-fly. It would be silly to have a second,
almost useless, compression slowing down your system.
In a similar context can be mentioned that some people prefer other
executable processors, such as DIET, to recompress the files.
Then there is an increase in execution speed of uncompressed files,
because the uncompression is no longer needed before execution. This
may, on the other hand, not be true on fast machines with slow drives.
In these circumstances the compressed file might actually execute
quicker because there is less disk access.
Finally, for the compression-hunters, there are a few extra's in this
program that lets you strip unnecessary information off of the
executables, making it a tad smaller.
WHY
You could ask why this separate program is necessary, as PKLITE
has the -x option to "extract" (I'd rather call it uncompress)
a compressed files.
The answer is simple. There is also an option in the commercial
version of PKLITE to generate "unextractable" files (-e). Needless
to say there are numerous programs available nowadays in this
"unextractable" format.
Also, with almost minimal effort it is quite easy to modify a
PKLITE compressed file in such a way that "PKLITE -x" cannot
handle it anymore. There are even tools around that do exactly
this.
DISLITE has the capability of expanding both "unextractable" files
and slightly modified files to their original image. Notice that
CHK4LITE that comes with PKLITE is also not able to recognise
modified PKLITE compressed files. Use "DISLITE -l" to determine
if a file is compressed by PKLITE or not. See the HOW section for
info on the -l option.
You should NOT use DISLITE to undo an erroneous "PKLITE -e" done
on your recently compiled fantastic program, to do a binary
compare with the latest version of your fantastic program. To
make a binary compare all parts of the executable have to be
restored exactly as they were, and the "PKLITE -e" process
throws some information away that is subsequently lost.
Needless to say the information lost during extra compression is not
important to run your program.
HOW
Usage of DISLITE is very simple. Just type:
> DISLITE file
to decompress the executable file.EXE or file.COM in the
current directory. You can also specify two filenames in which
case the first file is left intact and the decompressed program
is written to the second filename.
If you type DISLITE without any parameters, the following help screen
appears to remind you of the possible options:
Usage: DISLITE [options] [d:][\path]Infile [[d:][\path]Outfile]
Options are:
-b = make backup .BAK file of original
-cN = N is max number of segments
-e = extract unextractable file (*)
-f = un-do the fixup optimizations done by HDROPT & `extra`
-h = remove irrelevant header data
-k = omit kludge code added on some files
-l = only list version info
-o = overwrite output file if it exists
-p = align text data on a page
-r = remove overlay data
-s = silent, do not generate any warnings
-u = update file time/date to current time/date
-v = verbose
In fact the options can appear anywhere on the command line, not just
directly after the program name. Options can always be combined,
so "-b -v -h" can be abbreviated as "-bvh". You can also use the switch
character (usually '/', but it could be set to anything) as the option
indicator. In case you use '/', the program tries to be smart and figures
out whether you mean a filename or indeed an option (since you can use
the '/' character as a directory separator too). In case of difficulty,
use '-' and '\'. (More specific: DISLITE will only recognise an option
initiated with '/' as option if every following character is a valid
option.)
A short description of all possible options follows:
-b This option makes a backup of the compressed file image, which
has the same name and path as the Infile, but the extension .BAK.
Any existing file with that name will automatically be overwritten.
-c This option sets the maximum number of segments in a compressed
program that DISLITE can handle. Notice that running out of segments
only produces a warning or two. If memory is short, reducing the
number of segments increases the amount of fixups DISLITE can handle.
(It is essential that there is enough memory for fixups).
If you are combining options, the c option should always be the last
letter in a sequence. You can put the number either directly after
the 'c' or separate them with a space.
-e This option is completly ignored by the program. Use it to your
hearts contents to spell interesting words using the option
letters. You might find "DISLITE -less" easier to remember than
"DISLITE -ls" to which it is otherwise functionally the same.
Notice that most option letters have no effect when you specify
them more than once.
-f This option undoes the effect of "HDROPT", and also the optimization
done by "PKLITE -e" extra compression, which is the same. The fixups
are rearranged such that they become relative to the observed segments
in the executable. This is automatically done for extra compressed
files.
-h Most linkers include in the ex