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1991-03-15
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P r o P a c k
High Performance Conference Maintenance Utility
by
Samuel H. Smith
Version 3.0 of 03-15-91
From The Tool Shop BBS
(818) 891-6780
Samuel H. Smith
P. O. Box 4808
Panorama City, CA 91412-4808
ProPack is designed to make it quick and easy to keep your PCBoard v14
compatible conference files in top condition. It is an indispensable
utility for systems with many large conferences or "net mail" between
boards.
Some of the high points of ProPack include:
* Fast! Runs 5 to 10 times faster than standard util-
ities. Uses assembly language and advanced buffering.
* Detect and automatically delete duplicate messages.
* Eliminate multiple network "taglines" to reduce message
base chaos.
* Option to remove reader "Via" line advertisement lines.
* Option to remove IBM and "high-ascii" codes.
* Option to automatically delete .BAK file after process-
ing is successfully completed.
* Purge messages after they reach a specified age.
* Automatically limit conference size to a specified
number of active messages.
Copyright 1988-1991 Samuel H. Smith; All rights reserved.
ProPack is NOT public domain software. You may use, copy and distribute
it freely, but you MAY NOT RESELL ProPack. A modest fee for copying may
be charged, not to exceed $3.00 exclusive of the cost of disk, mailer
and postage.
If you like and use ProPack, I request you register the program after a
reasonable trial period (about 30-45 days).
----------------
PCBoard is a registered trademark of Clark Development Company.
ProPack is very small and lightning fast. It is the fastest way I know
of to pack and re-index PCBoard message files. It can pack a conference
with 1000 messages in less than a minute. The standard PCBPACK program
takes many minutes and much disk thrashing to do the same thing.
High speed operation is achieved through advanced buffering techniques
and optimized assembly language in critical sections.
Speed is not gained through "cutting corners" or lax error checking.
ProPack contains extensive error checking and makes every effort to
preserve all available data -- even when the message base is already
partially corrupt.
ProPack will remove all "killed" messages, and will skip over older
ones to keep the specified number of messages on file.
ProPack has the ability to detect and remove "duplicate" messages. This
option will remove any message that exactly duplicates the text, has the
same subject, and is from the same person as any other message.
This is very useful in conjunction with Qnet, Qmail, and other PCBoard
echo/message extensions. A very fast 32-bit CRC is used to locate the
duplicates.
You can use batch files with ProPack. Since you specify the full message
base filename on the command line, it will easily handle your "external"
conferences.
ProPack can handle message bases with as many as 15000 messages.
Please limit your "message blocks" to 15 or less when you define
conferences.
ProPack is fully integrated with the ProDoor system. You can use
ProDoor's PROSM utility to automatically generate a batch file for event
processing using ProPack.
You can redirect the output of ProPack to generate a summary log file
that records status messages for unattended operation.
ProPack has the ability to capture the text of purged messages into
a text file for archival purposes.
USAGE
=====
ProPack MAILFILE MAXMSGS [/DEHKLRTUVX] [/Nxxx] [/Sfile]
PARAMETERS
----------
MAILFILE Mail file d:\path\name to be packed.
MAXMSGS Maximum number of messages to keep, 0=no limit.
OPTIONS
-------
Options can be combined without additional "/" or space characters.
/D Kill any message that has the same exact text, subject and from-
user as a previous message.
/E Exclude tag-lines and via-lines when checking for duplicate
messages.
/H Reset "high message number" to last message number.
Warning: use of this option can lead to the high message number
being re-assigned to a different message, causing messages to be
"lost" under some netmail or reader software.
/I Remove IBM and "high-ascii" codes. This option changes all ascii
codes greater than chr(127) to ".".
/K Kill .BAK file after a successful pack.
/L List duplicate message numbers as they are killed.
/Nxx Kill messages over xxx days old.
/R Purge RECEIVED+PRIVATE messages.
/T Removes all but the first '* Origin' tagline generated by Qnet,
PCRelay, or other netmail systems.
/Sfn Capture purged message texts into the text file 'fn'. If this
file already exists, the text will be appended. Otherwise a
new file will be created.
/U Always keep UN-RECEIVED+ PRIVATE messages regardless of other
options. Keep any message that is PRIVATE but has not been
received, even if it is old and would normally be purged.
/V Remove '* Via' lines generated by alternate readers such as
ProDoor, Qmail, EZ-rdr, RelayMail, etc.
/W Preserve the two-line format in "PCRelay:" taglines. The default
(when /T is used) is to keep only the first of the two lines.
/X List message texts during packing. The listing may include line
markers for the "Tear", "Via" and "Tag" line components of a
message. This display is used in debugging to help locate the
reason for message duplication.
EXAMPLES
========
ProPack c:\pcb\main\msgs 1000
Pack the main board, leaving no more than 1000 active messages.
ProPack \pcb\tools\tools 500 /D /L
Pack the "tools" conference, deleting all duplicates and leaving no
more than 500 active messages.
ProPack \pcb\sysops\sysops 14000 /D /R
Pack the "sysops" conference, deleting all duplicates, all
RECEIVED+PRIVATE messages, and leaving no more than 14000 active
messages.
ProPack \pcb\ibm\ibm 500 /DLN180T
Pack the "IBM" conference, deleting and listing all duplicates,
leaving no more than 500 active messages, deleting messages over
180 days old, and removing multiple "origin" tag lines. Notice
that options can be combined without extra "/" characters or
spaces.
ProPack \pcb\ibm\ibm 100 /DLN180T /S\pcb\ibm\ibm.sav
Pack the "IBM" conference, as in the previous example, but
will also save the text of the purged messages in the file
\pcb\ibm\ibm.sav
for archival purposes.
EXAMPLE EVENT.SYS
-----------------
rem PackAll.BAT generated by ProSM
echo off
tm "Packall Started" >>PACKALL.LOG
ProPack C:\PCB\MAIN\MSGS 800 /eltn360k >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
ProPack C:\PCB\TOOLS\TOOLS 250 /eltn180k >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
ProPack C:\PCB\SUPPORT\SUPPORT 800 /eltn360k >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
ProPack C:\PCB\AI\AI 100 /eltn180k >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
ProPack C:\PCB\ST\ST 100 /eltn360k >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
ProPack C:\PCB\IBM\IBM 300 /eltn90k >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
ProPack C:\PCB\PHOTO\PHOTO 100 /eltn180k >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
ProPack C:\PCB\SYSOPS\SYSOPS 100 /eltn180k >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
ProPack C:\PCB\SMARTNET\SMARTNET 100 /eltn90k >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
ProPack C:\PCB\INTRLINK\INTRLINK 100 /eltn90k >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
ProPack C:\PCB\TELIX\TELIX 100 /eltn90k >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
ProPack C:\PCB\QMODEM\QMODEM 100 /eltn90k >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
ProPack C:\PCB\ADA\ADA 1000 /eltk >>PACKALL.LOG
if errorlevel 1 goto exit
:exit
echo. >>PACKALL.LOG
tm "Packall Ended" >>PACKALL.LOG
echo ---------- >>PACKALL.LOG
ERROR MESSAGES
==============
Error: Missing command line parameters
You must always specify the conference file to be packed and the
maximum number of messages to store in the conference. If you
leave off either of these parameters you will get this error
message along with a summary of the command format and options.
Error: Invalid digit in "MAXMSGS" parameter
Following the conference file name you must always specify the
maximum number of messages to store in the conference. This error
usually indicates that you forgot to include the number of messages
and instead entered one of the command options.
Error: Unknown option: ____
This error means that you are using a command line option that is
not recognized by the program.
Error: Cant open index file
ProPack requires that an index file be present for each message
file being packed. If you are creating a new conference, or if you
have lost your index file, please use ProDoor's PROSM program to
create a new one.
Error: Cant open message file
Please check that you are specifying the proper full path and file
name for the conference you with to pack. This error might also
indicate that the message file is in use by another program that
requires exclusive access to the same file. Network systems should
insure that all nodes are offline before attempting to pack a
conference file.
ProPack Aborted. Reason: Could not rename _________ to ________
After packing is completed, ProPack attempts to rename the original
message file to 'name.BAK', and then to rename the newly packed
file to 'name'. Rename failure usually indicates that the original
file is in use by another program. Network systems should insure
that all nodes are offline before attempting to pack a conference
file.
ProPack Aborted. Reason: Write failure - disk full or bad sector
This error is reported when DOS reports an error while writing to
the new conference file. It usually indicates that the disk is
too full to hold the original message file plus the new file, or
that there is a bad sector that prevented the file from being
written.
ProPack Aborted. Reason: Index too large - decrease index blocks
Index files should be 64k or smaller. ProPack loads the entire
index into memory for the fastest operation possible. If you are
using very large index files you need to reduce them to 15 or
fewer blocks using ProDoor's PROSM utility.
ProPack Aborted. Reason: Index file overflow - increase index blocks
Each index file must be allocated large enough to have one entry
for each message number between the lowest message and the highest
message in a conference. Index file sizes are *NOT* based on the
number of active messages - rather the size is based on the size of
the range of valid message numbers.
ProPack Aborted. Reason: CRC table overflow - delete .CRC file and rerun
This error indicates that the .CRC file used for duplicate message
detection has grown beyond the limits of the program. ProPack
allocates room for 15000 total messages in the CRC file. After
processing this many messages you may have to manually delete the
'name.CRC' file and let ProPack rebuild it from scratch.
Please note that it is normal for ProPack to leave a .CRC file in the
same directory as the message file. This small file contains informa-
tion on present and past messages that makes it possibly to quickly
determine if a new message is unique or a duplicate.
If you delete the .CRC file it will slow down program operation because
it must then look at each and every message to check for duplication.
ERROR LEVELS
============
ProPack returns with ERRORLEVEL set to 0 after a successful pack. If any
error occurred during the pack ERRORLEVEL will be set to 1.
SUPPORT
=======
I work very hard to produce a software package of the highest quality and
functionality. I try to look into all reported bugs, and will generally
fix reported problems within a few days.
Since this is user supported software under the ShareWare concept, I
don't expect you to contribute if you don't like it or if it doesn't meet
your needs.
If you have any questions, bugs, or suggestions, please contact me at the
Tool Shop BBS, (818) 891-6780.
The latest version is always available for downloading.
LICENSE
=======
This package is NOT public domain software. You may use, copy and
distribute it freely, but you MAY NOT RESELL the program. A modest fee
for copying may be charged, not to exceed $3.00 exclusive of the cost of
disk, mailer and postage.
If you like and use this program, I request you register it for $15
after a reasonable trial period (about 30-45 days).
Please see REGISTER.FRM for additional registration information.
Send your registration check or money order to:
Samuel H. Smith
The Tool Shop
P. O. Box 4808
Panorama City, CA 91412-4808
DISCLAIMER
==========
IN NO EVENT WILL I BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST
PROFITS, LOST SAVINGS OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
ARISING OUT OF YOUR USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM, OR FOR ANY
CLAIM BY ANY OTHER PARTY.
REVISION HISTORY
================
See PROPACK.NEW for complete revision history.