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- *********************************************************************
- THIS ARTICLE IS BEING PRESENTED THROUGH THE PIP ONLINE CP/M MAGAZINE
- OF THE NATIONAL CP/M ROUNDTABLE ON GENIE. copyright (c) 1989 BY
- BILL JULIANI. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PERMISSION IS HEREBY GRANTED
- TO NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS ONLY TO REPRINT THIS ARTICLE OR PASS IT
- ALONG ELECTRONICALLY AS LONG AS PROPER CREDIT IS GIVEN TO BOTH THE
- AUTHOR AND GENIE.
- *********************************************************************
-
-
- PIP tutorial by Dale Ray (D.RAY1)
-
- PIP: Peripheral Interchange Program
-
- PIP is one of the most powerful utilities in your CP/M library.
- Normally you use it to simply copy files from one drive to another.
- But PIP can do much more than that. PIP can interchange data between
- your other computer peripherals too. In CP/M each peripheral has a
- name that the computer recognizes it by. For example:
-
- LST = PRINTER
-
- CON = CONSOLE (monitor & keyboard)
-
- These devices can be specified in the PIP command instead of a disk
- drive.
-
- EXAMPLE:
-
- A>PIP LST:=A:FILE.TYP
-
-
- The above command will cause FILE.TYP to be read from the disk in
- drive A and outputted to the printer. If you had specified CON:
- instead it would be printed on your monitor.
-
- OPTIONS:
-
-
-
-
- PIP has many options for altering a file as it is transferred between
- peripherals. These can be used to reformat a file as it is duplicated
- or printed. You will use these options most frequently with text
- files. The options are used by placing them in brackets [] at the end
- of the command string. DO NOT put a space before the first bracket.
- Where there is an [n] after the option it means that you can enter a
- number there to further control the options function.
-
- Dn ... Delete Characters. This will truncate a file that is too wide
- to display. All characters that are beyond (n) will be cut off.
-
- E .... Echo Characters. all copying is echoed to the screen. Use this
- to view a file while it is being transferred.
-
- F .... Form Feeds removed. Takes all form feed commands out of the
- file.
-
-
- L .... Lowercase Only. Converts all uppercase characters to lowercase.
-
-
- N .... Number Lines. Numbers the lines of the file. Used most to
- create a program file from a text file, allowing you to enter your
- program with a text editor.
-
-
- N2 ... Number Lines. Same as above but it puts leading zeros before
- the numbers (001) and a tab after the number.
-
-
- Pn ... Page Form-Feeds added. Think of this as page length. It adds a
- form feed after the number of lines you specify. Default is 60. Keeps
- you from printing over the perfs.
-
-
- Qphrase[control]Z... Quit copying at phrase specified. After the Q
- enter the phrase you want the computer to look for then hold down the
- control key and press Z. When your phrase is reached copying will be
- stopped.
-
-
- Sphrase[control]Z... Start copying at phrase specified. Same syntax as
- above. Use Q and S together to copy a specified section of the file.
-
-
- Tn ... Tab Spaces. Each TAB encountered in the text will cause the
- specified number of spaces to be printed.
-
-
- U .... Uppercase only. Converts all lowercase to uppercase characters.
-
-
- V ... Verify copy. Causes the system to check the copy against the
- original for errors.
-
-
- As you can see there is a lot you can do with PIP to reformat text
- files. Experiment to see what you can do.
-
-
- OTHER USES:
-
-
- Another use for PIP in handling text files is the ability to join
- files together. To do this simply list the source files separated by a
- comma. EX.:
-
-
- A>PIP BOOK=CHAPTER1,CHAPTER2,CHAPTER3
-
-
- This would create a file called book by copying the three specified
- source files into one larger file.
-
-
- You can also use PIP to transfer files from one user area to another.
- The syntax looks like this:
-
-
- A>PIP NEWFILE.TYP=OLDFILE.TYP[Gn]
-
-
- This would GET the file OLDFILE.TYP from the user area specified by
- the n and copy it to the current user area.
-
-
-