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Table of Contents
A. Title........................................................... 1
B. DISCLAIMER...................................................... 2
C. Introduction.................................................... 3
D. Starting heXEdit................................................ 4
E. Command Line Options............................................ 4
F. Environment Variable - XEOPT.................................... 5
G. Loadfile box.................................................... 5
1. File/Directory Attributes.................................... 7
H. Main Display.................................................... 7
I. Commands........................................................ 8
1. Help......................................................... 8
2. ASCII chart.................................................. 9
3. Convert a number............................................. 9
4. Change colors............................................... 10
5. Decimal offset ............................................. 11
6. Shell out to DOS prompt or another program.................. 11
7. Edit........................................................ 11
8. Goto an offset.............................................. 13
9. Hexadecimal offset ......................................... 14
10. Load a new file............................................ 14
11. Push position on marker stack.............................. 14
12. Search again............................................... 14
13. Octal offset .............................................. 14
14. Retrieve position from marker stack........................ 15
15. Search..................................................... 15
16. Clear marker stack......................................... 16
17. Goto marked position....................................... 16
J. Other Notes.................................................... 16
K. Comments....................................................... 17
L. Appendix....................................................... 17
1. Version History............................................. 17
2. Trademark information....................................... 20
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page i ---
A. Title
heXEdit
Version 4.16
8-13-94
Robert Stuntz
565 Dorothy Dr. Apt. 1
Des Plaines, IL. 60016
U.S.A.
CompuServe : 71043,117
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 1 ---
B. DISCLAIMER
THIS SOFTWARE AND MANUAL ARE DISTRIBUTED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT
WARRANTIES AS TO PERFORMANCE OF MERCHANTABILITY OR ANY OTHER
WARRANTIES WHETHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. BECAUSE OF THE VARIOUS
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENTS INTO WHICH THIS PROGRAM MAY BE
PUT, NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED AND
ALL LIABILITY IN THE USE AND EFFECTS OF THIS PROGRAM SHALL REST
WITH THE USER.
THIS PROGRAM HAS THE ABILITY TO ALTER YOUR FILES! YOU ARE
RESPONSIBLE! (Sorry, but I have to warn you ...)
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 2 ---
C. Introduction
heXEdit (XE) is a program that will allow you to display and/or
edit any file. It doesn't have a fancy interface but serves my
purposes perfectly. I wrote this program because I became
frustrated with a couple of other commercial programs. They either
had some annoying peculiarities or required too much thought on my
part just to search for and change a couple of bytes.
heXEdit was written using Turbo Pascal v6.0, although it doesn't
use any of Borland's object libraries. It does however write
directly to video memory for speed when scrolling thru the file.
If you're using a CGA monitor you may see some 'snow' as I don't
check for the vertical retrace period before writing to video
memory.
heXEdit will keep no more than 1760 bytes of the file you load in
memory at a time, as I didn't feel like messing with a variable
amount of memory available. heXEdit requires about 130k bytes of
free memory in order to execute.
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 3 ---
D. Starting heXEdit
To start heXEdit, enter
XE [options] [<drive>:][<filename>] [options]
The drive designator, filename and options are ... optional on the
command line. If only a drive designator is specified, XE will
show you the files from that drive's current directory. If a file
is specified XE will try to load that file, if not, you will see a
list of files from the current directory. All of the available
command line options are explained in the following section.
E. Command Line Options
Available command line options are as follows :
1. /C or /M
/C This option tells XE to use it's default color set.
/M This option tells XE to use black and white colors; for
monochrome monitors.
3. /? or /H
Either of these two options will display a short message about the
start-up syntax.
4. /Lc[c[c]]
The files and directories in the Loadfile box (described in the
next section) are sorted, depending on the value of this option.
/L is followed by 1-3 characters listed below which describe the
actual sort options.
c = U, D, F N, E, S, T A, Z
(group 1)
U - unsorted; directory and file entries are listed as
they are read from the disk, then list drive
designators
D - put directory entries at the top of the list, followed
by files, then drive designators
(default)
F - put file entries at the top of the list, followed by
directories, then drive designators
(group 2)
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 4 ---
N - sort files/dirs by name
(default)
E - sort files/dirs by extension then name
(sorting by ext slows down the speed at which the list
is sorted and displayed, more than the other options)
S - sort files by size, dirs by name
(physical size of dir entry irrelevant)
T - sort files/dirs by date/time
(group 3)
A - sort files/dirs in ascending order
(default)
Z - sort files/dirs in descending order
Note that it is possible to specify options that are in conflict
with each other. However, the last option specified belonging to
each group is the one used. For example, you could use /LDNF, and
in this case the F would take precedence over the D. For /LES, the
S will take precedence. If you do not specify an option for a
group, a default value will be used (D for group 1, N for group 2,
and A for group 3).
If there is an invalid option or sub-option specified, XE will
exit with an error message.
F. Environment Variable - XEOPT
All of the command line options can also be specified thru an
environment variable called 'XEOPT'. To set the value of XEOPT,
use the DOS SET command at a DOS prompt before running XE. For
example:
SET XEOPT=/LFEA/C
If command line options are used, they will override environment
variable options if they conflict with each other.
G. Loadfile box
If a drive designator is specified on the command line, XE will
show you the files from that drive's current directory. If a file
is specified XE will try to load that file, if not, you will see a
list of files from the current directory of the current drive. If
a file or directory has it's hidden attribute set, it will be
displayed in lower case. At the end of the list, you will see one
or more drive designators. The drives you can choose from are all
the available drives, including remote (or network) drives. If a
drive is a removeable media device (like a floppy drive), then you
will see the characters '( )' surrounding the drive letter. If a
drive is a fixed media device (like a hard disk drive), then you
will see the characters '[ ]' surrounding the drive letter. If a
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 5 ---
drive is a remote device, whether it's fixed or removeable, then
you will see the characters '{ }' surrounding the drive letter.
If a drive is local and fixed, then the VolumeID will be displayed
to the right of the drive letter. Selecting one of these will
show you the contents of that drive's current directory.
To load a file, simply use the UP and DOWN arrow keys to move the
highlight bar to the file you want to load, then press ENTER. You
can also use the PAGEUP and PAGEDOWN keys to scroll thru the list
of files a page at a time. Pressing the HOME key will move you to
the top of the list, pressing END moves you to the end of the
list.
New with version 4.1 * You can now do a 'hypersearch' to jump
right to a file, directory, or drive designator rather than
scrolling thru the list. While in the Loadfile box, if you press a
letter or number, or any other valid filename character, the
highlight bar will move to the first file or directory whose name
begins with the character you pressed. The search starts from your
current highlight bar position and stops at the first match it
finds. It will wrap around to the top, if nothing matches, and
continue searching up to your current position. If no match is
found, you will hear a short, low pitch beep. XE will also check
the drive designator entries, at the end of the list, for your
'hyper-character'. For ex., if you don't have any files or
directories that start with the letter 'B', and you press 'B', the
highlight bar will move to the drive designator '[ - B: - ]'.
Pressing the period '.' key will move you to the directory entry
of '..' (the parent directory label).
Also new with version 4.1 * On the left border of the Loadfile box
is a percentage indicator (either '', '', or '' - ascii codes
#25, #18, #24) of how far up or down you are in the list of
files/directories. When you (the highlight bar) are at the first
file/directory in the list, the indicator is at the top of the
border. If you are 70% of the way down the list, the indicator is
about 70% of the way down the border; etc, etc. It is there as a
quick reference, not an exact measurement. * And on the right
border, the options that you specified (or the default options)
for the Loadfile box sort options (/L) will be displayed.
Pressing ENTER on a directory entry or a drive letter will change
to that directory or drive.
While using the Loadfile box, you may encounter an error, for one
reason or another. Generally speaking, you will be given one, some
or all of the options below :
1 - (A)bort : if you press 'A' XE will abort the operation.
2 - (R)etry : press 'R' to retry the operation. (Maybe the
drive door was opened before you hit ENTER to load the
file.)
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 6 ---
3 - (Q)uit XE : press 'Q' to quit XE and return to the DOS
prompt (or wherever it was that you came from).
4 - Any other key : if you hit any other key than the ones
described above you will be returned to the Loadfile box.
While in the Loadfile box, pressing ESC will exit the Loadfile box
and either 1) return you to the last file you were viewing, or 2)
if no file was previously loaded, exit XE altogether.
1. File/Directory Attributes
One last feature of the Loadfile box is that you can change the
attributes of a file simply by pressing F5-F8 (providing the file
is available; i.e., the disk is in the drive etc). And starting
with version 3.64, you can also change the Hidden attribute bit of
a subdirectory. Move the highlight bar to the file you want to
work with and then simply press one of the following keys,
depending on what you want to do.
F5 - toggles the Archive bit
F6 - toggles the System bit
F7 - toggles the Hidden bit
F8 - toggles the Read_Only bit
If the attribute change was successful you will hear a high pitch
tone, otherwise you will hear a low tone indicating that the
attribute could not be changed for one reason or another. You
should also see the attribute change in the Loadfile box if the
change was successful.
*** NOTE : Be sure you know what affect changing an attribute will
have on your system. Some programs act on the attributes of a
file or may even require certain attributes to be set.
H. Main Display
Once the file is loaded you will see the main display. At the top
is the name of the file loaded. On the left side of the display
are numbers (in hexadecimal,decimal or octal) indicating the
offset into the file. In the middle are 22 rows of 16 bytes which
are the file's contents. On the right, the ASCII character for
each byte in that row. In the ASCII portion of the display, any
characters past the EOF (end-of-file) are shown as a '.' (ASCII
#249). On the bottom is a status word indicating your current
operation, a three letter abbrev indicating whether the offset
display is in 'hex'adecimal, 'dec'imal, or 'oct'al, the percentage
into the file from the top line, and the size of the file in
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 7 ---
decimal.
I. Commands
Following is a list of commands once you are in XE and then a
brief explanation of each :
F1 - Help
A/Alt+A - ASCII table
B/Alt+B - Base conversion (decimal-hexadecimal-binary)
C - Change colors
D - Change offset display to Decimal
Alt+D - Shell out to a DOS prompt, or other program
E - Edit the file
G - Goto offset
H - Change offset display to Hexadecimal
L - Bring up the Loadfile box
M - Push position on marker stack
N - Search again (using the last used search string)
O - Change offset display to Octal
R - Retrieve position from marker stack
S - Search (for text or a byte string)
Z - Clear all entries from marker stack
ALT+1 thru ALT+9 - Goto marked position
UP/DOWN arrow keys - scroll up and down one line at a time
PAGEUP/PAGEDOWN - move up/down one page at a time
HOME - move to the beginning of the file
END - move to the end of the file
ESC/Alt+X - quit XE
1. Help
F1
Pressing F1 will display a help screen. You now have the following
commands available :
F1 : Help on Help
F2 : Display index (keywords) for items in the help file
F3 : Goto the previous screen (limited)
F5 : Zoom/Unzoom the help screen
ENTER : Get help on a highlighted keyword
Arrow keys : Scroll the help screen contents left, right,
up and down
ESC : Exits help
TAB / SHFT+TAB : Highlight the next/previous visible
keyword
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 8 ---
PAGEUP/PAGEDOWN : Move up and down a page at a time
HOME/END : Goto the beginning/end of the help info for
the current item
In the upper left corner of the help screen (in the border), you
may see a number and possibly one of three arrow characters. The
number is the left column, of the help info, you are at. If you
are at column one, it will not be displayed. The arrow characters
indicate if there is more info either above or below (or both) of
your position.
A couple of notes on the help file.
1. heXEdit expects the help file (XE.HLP) to be in the directory
that XE.EXE is in. If it is not, you will get an error message
when you invoke help.
2. If you modify the help file, make sure your keywords are
capitalized and start in column one. It will probably be easier to
just look at the help file that came with heXEdit to see how it's
done.
3. There is a limit of 75 lines of information per keyword.
4. Keyword information begins with it's keyword and ends with a
slash (#47).
5. To create a keyword in a help screen, precede the keyword with
a tilde (#126) and end it with a back-quote (#96).
2. ASCII chart
A or Alt+A
Display an ASCII chart.
ASCII chart commands :
LEFT arrow key : go back 16 characters
RIGHT arrow key : go forward 16 characters
PAGEUP : go back 128 characters
PAGEDOWN : go forward 128 characters
D : display numbers in decimal
H : display numbers in hexadecimal
ESC or ENTER : exits ASCII chart
3. Convert a number
B or Alt+B
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 9 ---
Convert a number from either decimal, hexadecimal or binary to the
other two.
Base convert commands :
UP/DOWN arrow keys : select the base of the input number
ENTER : convert the number
ESC : exit the base convert routine
Using the arrow keys, move the highlight bar to the base of the
input number and then either 1) press ENTER and enter the number
or 2) just start typing the number. After the number has been
converted, press any key to select the base for another conversion
or press ESC to exit.
When you enter the number, I only check for validity with the
first character. If you try to convert an invalid number an error
message will be displayed. The largest number that can be
accurately converted is a 32 bit number. It has a very simple
input routine, so don't be surprised if you can enter an invalid
number. The conversion will be incorrect of course. I leave it
mostly up to you to enter a valid number.
4. Change colors
C
This command will allow you to change the color of just about
anything. You can also save the colors you choose so that XE will
startup with those colors.
Simply select the area you want to change the color in by pressing
a letter 'A' thru 'O'. A colorbox of all possible colors will
appear. The current color of the item you selected will have two
white bars on either side of an 'X'. You can now move those white
bars around with the arrow keys to select a new color. With the
white bars around the color scheme you want, press ENTER. If you
change your mind and don't want to change the color of that item,
press ESC.
There are a couple areas that have a color selection restriction.
Area 'G', Altered bytes background, you can only select the
background, the foreground is the same as the main bytes (area
'A'). And the border for Help, only the foreground can be selected
as it's background is the same as the Help text (area 'L').
Color Change Commands :
F1 : get help
A-O : select the area you want to change
S : save the currently selected colors to XE.EXE
ESC/ENTER : exit the color change screen
The 'S' command will save the currently selected colors to the
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 10 ---
executable file (XE.EXE). If XE.EXE is not available where it was
started from, an error message will be displayed to that effect,
which means your colors have not been saved.
If you want the default colors back, start-up XE with the /C
option. If you want to retain the default colors make sure you
then save the colors, otherwise the next time you start XE you
will have whatever colors were last saved in XE.EXE.
5. Decimal offset #'s
D
Change the offset display to base 10, decimal.
6. Shell out to DOS prompt or another program
Alt+D
This command will shell out to a DOS prompt or another program.
When this command is pressed, XE first looks for an environment
variable called XESHELL. If found, XE will try to run the program
name specified by that environment variable. When using XESHELL,
the entire pathname needs to be used if the program you want to
shell too is not in your current directory. XE does not search the
directories in your PATH for the program specified. Also, the
program specified has to have an extension of EXE or COM and
command line parameters can be included. The following is an
example of how to set the value of XESHELL (from a DOS prompt):
SET XESHELL=C:\UT\LIST.COM /4
If XE does not find a value for XESHELL, it looks for COMSPEC. The
rules above also apply to COMSPEC. COMSPEC is normally set to the
command processor COMMAND.COM. If neither environment variable
exists, you will receive an error message stating so.
If COMMAND.COM is the program shelled to, typing EXIT will return
you to heXEdit. If XESHELL is used to run a different program,
exiting that program will return you to heXEdit.
7. Edit
E
Begin editing the file at the current position. If the file is a
READ ONLY file, a short message to that affect will appear and you
will be returned to the view mode. Of course, you could just press
'L' to bring up the Loadfile box and change the READ ONLY
attribute of the file with F8. And then go back and edit. But,
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 11 ---
it might be READ ONLY for a reason ...
If you had previously searched the file successfully (meaning you
found an item) then if that exact item is displayed on screen when
you go to edit mode, then the cursor will be positioned at the
first character of that item. When I say exact item, I mean the
last item that you found in your search (this does not quite work
as I'd like it too...). Also, shown at the bottom is the offset
of the cursor position.
Edit commands :
F1 : get help
Alt+A : displays the ASCII chart
Alt+B : base number conversion
Alt+D : shell out to DOS or other prog
BACKSPACE/LEFT arrow key : move cursor left 1 byte
RIGHT arrow key : move cursor right 1 byte
PAGEUP : move cursor to first line on page
PAGEDOWN : move cursor to last line on page
HOME : move cursor to beginning of line
END : move cursor to end of line
TAB : toggle cursor position between the hexadecimal display
and the ASCII display of the file. The above editing
commands will move the cursor within the area the
cursor is in. You can edit the file making changes in
both areas at the same time, if so desired.
ENTER : quit editing. If you made changes to whole bytes you
will be prompted to save the changes or not. Press
'Y' to save the changes or 'N' to lose the changes.
Only the portion of the file that is in memory is
actually saved. So don't worry about waiting for a
long save if you are editing a large file. You are
then returned to the View mode.
ESC : quit editing. If you made changes to whole bytes you will
be prompted to discard the changes or not. Press 'Y' to
discard the changes and return to view mode, or 'N' to
return to edit mode.
After pressing either ENTER or ESC (as above), you can press ESC
to cancel the request and return to edit mode.
To change a value when in the hexadecimal portion, just type in
it's new value. The background of the character will change,
indicating which bytes have been changed. Valid values are
$00 - $FF. Obviously, pressing a key like 'P' will do nothing
because 'P' is not a valid hexadecimal character.
To change a value when in the ASCII portion of the display, simply
press the key of the new value. Or, hold down the ALT key while
typing the ASCII code, on the numeric keypad, of the character you
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 12 ---
want, then release the ALT key. Using the ALT key in this area,
you can enter a value from 32-255. Again, the background will
change indicating a change.
8. Goto an offset
G
Goto an offset in the file. You are prompted for an offset to go
to. You can enter either a decimal number or a hexadecimal number.
If you press ESC while entering a number you will be placed back
in the View mode with no repositioning taking place. The
BACKSPACE key can be used to edit your entry. If you enter an
offset that is beyond the EOF (or < 0) you will be prompted again
for a number.
New with version 4.0 * If you've done at least one Goto command,
you can also select any past offsets you've entered by pressing H,
(H for History). After pressing H, the most recent offset entered
is displayed. If you want to see other offsets that are in
history, press the UP ARROW key. Using the UP and DOWN ARROW keys
you can see all the offsets in history. When you've found the
offset you want to goto just press ENTER. Pressing ESC while
viewing the history items will return you to the input offset
prompt. There can be a maximum of 50 offsets saved in history.
Anytime a Goto command is done, the offset is added to history.
The oldest entries will be lost from history when new offsets are
added and there are already 50 offsets in history. Duplicate
offsets are not re-saved to history.
If you are displaying the file offsets in hexadecimal, then a '$'
character is placed on the input line for you. The '$' character
tells heXEdit that the number you are entering is in base 16. If
you were displaying the file offsets in decimal the '$' is not put
on the input line. You can press the BACKSPACE key to erase the
'$' if necessary.
To enter the offset, just type in the number, no commas, and press
ENTER.
Also, if at anytime while entering a number, you enter an 'A'
through 'F' and you do not have a '$' as the first character, it
will be inserted into the input line at the beginning and your
entry will be taken as a hexadecimal number. For example:
Keystroke Screen
3 3
5 35
1 351
E $351E
etc ...
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 13 ---
9. Hexadecimal offset #'s
H
Change the offset display to base 16, hexadecimal.
10. Load a new file
L
You will enter the Loadfile box in order to select a new file (as
described earlier in this document under 'Loadfile box').
Since you can't leave the edit mode without either saving any
changes or losing changes, you needn't worry about saving the
current file before loading a new one.
11. Push position on marker stack
M
Your current position in the file can be saved with this command
and then be retrieved later on.
Your position is saved on a stack. If the stack is full the oldest
position will be deleted and the rest of the entries will move
down the stack to make room for the new entry. The maximum number
of positions you can save is 100. Also, when your position is
saved, it's location on the stack is reported to you so you can
see how full the marker stack is.
This command can also be used while searching. If the search
string is found, you can press 'M' to save that position on the
marker stack and then continue searching.
12. Search again
N
Search again using the last used search string. If there is no
previous search string, you will be prompted, as if you pressed
'S', to enter a search string.
13. Octal offset #'s
O
Change the offset display to base 8, octal.
If you happen to be looking at a REALLY BIG file, any offsets
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 14 ---
greater than 134,217,727 bytes will appear as '+++++++++' in the
left side of the main display.
14. Retrieve position from marker stack
R
While viewing the file, if you do this command you will be moved
to the location specified by the top marker stack entry. Once you
have been moved to the new location, the entry you retrieved will
be deleted from the marker stack. If there are no markers on the
stack, then nothing will happen.
15. Search
S
Search the file for a byte or text sequence. You will be prompted
for the type of search (B)yte or (T)ext.
New with version 4.0 * If you've done at least one search, you can
also select any past items you've searched for by pressing H (H
for History) when you are asked for the type of search to perform.
After pressing H, the most recent search item is displayed. If you
want to see other search items that are in history, press the UP
ARROW key. Using the UP and DOWN ARROW keys you can see all the
items in history. When you've found the item you want to search
for just press ENTER. Pressing ESC while viewing the history items
will return you to view mode. There can be a maximum of 50 items
saved in history. Anytime a (B)yte or (T)ext search is done, the
item is added to history. The oldest items will be lost from
history if new items are searched for and there are already 50
items in history. Duplicate items are not saved to history.
For a byte sequence, enter the bytes in hexadecimal notation then
press ENTER. As with editing, you must enter a complete byte, for
the search to work correctly, although I don't check for that
here. You can use the BACKSPACE key to go back and make
corrections. The maximum length for a byte sequence is 9 bytes. I
think that is plenty long enough, even 4 bytes would probably be
enough to find what you're looking for. For example, you might see
this prompt :
Enter search bytes :
Now you would just press the numbers or letters that make up the
bytes you want to search for, like :
D3 45 FF 00 C4 6E
There is no need to enter a space between each byte as I do that
for you while you're entering your numbers.
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 15 ---
For a text sequence, just type in the text to search for, no
quotes are needed, and press ENTER. The maximum length for a text
sequence is 25 characters. The search is case insensitive.
If the search string is found, the display will move to that
string's location in the file and will be highlighted at the top
of the screen. You can now press any key to continue the search,
press 'M' to Mark the position or press ESC to stop searching.
While XE is searching, you can press any key to interrupt and stop
the search.
Just to make things simple for myself, every search starts at the
beginning of the file. Even on large files, starting at the
beginning to find something you know is near the end doesn't take
very long at all (at least not on my 40Mhz 386!).
And beginning with v3.5, the searching is done using the
Boyer-Moore algorithm. This should significantly speed up
searching; on ANY computer.
16. Clear marker stack
Z
This command will delete all entries from the marker stack.
Careful, there is no turning back from the results of this
command.
17. Goto marked position
Alt+1 thru Alt+9
Using these commands will move you to a previously marked position
without deleting the mark information. The retrieve command 'R'
moves you to the last position and deletes the mark, using Alt+1 -
Alt+9 does not delete the mark. Alt+1 moves you to the first
marked position, Alt+2 moves you to the second marked position,
etc etc. If you try to move to a position that has not been marked
yet, nothing will happen except a message telling you so.
J. Other Notes
If for some reason you rename XE.EXE you will need to rename the
help file, XE.HLP. For example, if you rename XE.EXE to XEDIT.EXE,
the help file should be renamed to XEDIT.HLP.
And if for some other reason you have XE.EXE loaded under XE, and
then save new color information, you may need to force a re-read
of the last part of the file to get the correct information
loaded.
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 16 ---
The Loadfile box has a limit of 2500 files or directories that it
can display for you. If you change to a directory with more than
2500, you will not see all of the files. 2500 is about as high as
I can go due to stack space limitations. If you want to load a
file that is in a directory with more than 2500 files, you'll have
to specify that filename on the command line when you start XE.
XE does not support any video modes other than 80x25 text but will
work with a monochrome monitor. Just don't forget to include the
'/M' option on the command line and then save the color
configuration to retain the monochrome 'colors'.
This program should NOT be compressed with PKLITE. It will not run
if it is. Because, XE reads the current color setup from itself,
compressing it with PKLITE will cause a runtime error.
K. Comments
I would STRONGLY suggest that you make a backup copy of any file
you're going to modify, just in case you decide later you want the
original file back. You should have a backup copy anyway as a
matter of safeguarding your files in case of catastrophe.
I have a 40Mhz 386dx AT running MS-DOS 6.2. XE should work with
most system configurations though.
Also, I don't expect any payment for use of this program. Feel
FREE to use it how you like, but be careful :).
Rob
L. Appendix
1. Version History
v1.0 04-08-91 - Initial writing
v1.1 05-16-91 - Minor internal changes
v1.2 07-04-91 - added Marker commands
v1.21 08-03-91 - increased marker stack size to 100
added Z command; clear marker stack
v1.3 08-12-91 - added Goto Offset command
fixed a bug or two
v2.0 09-25-91 - added Loadfile box (instead of typing in
the filename)
set to video page 0 at startup
(this was done in case you shell out from
another program and that program puts you
in a video page other than 0, like Turbo
Debugger. XE needs to be in video page
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 17 ---
0. XE returns to the video page you
where at before it started when you exit)
added backspace key use while editing (acts
like left arrow key)
added 'D', 'H' and 'O' commands while viewing
changed Help command to 'F1' from 'H'
made Search command case insensitive
added ability to enter a drive designator
on cmd line to start Loadfile box on that drive
and of course fixed some bugs ...
v2.1 10-19-91 - decided I better try and trap most of the
I/O, as opposed to only some, for errors,
to avoid a possible run-time error
allow loading of read-only files
allow entry of ASCII chars 32-255 when
editing in ASCII portion of display
(formerly 32-126)
check for and handle extremely long path names
in display
swapped ability to change Help screen color
with Base convert
search command now highlights found text,
(no flashing arrow!)
hidden files (and directories) are lowercase
in Loadfile box
and the usual bug fixes ...
v2.11 10-21-91 - fixed base convert color saving and loading
from cfg file
v3.0 11-11-91 - fixed pagedown problem of going past EOF on
display for files with a length approaching
that of the buffer size
added '%' into file indicator
you can now call up the ascii chart and
base convert from edit mode with
Alt+A, Alt+B
in edit mode, Pg Up/Dn now just goto first/
last line. column position is not changed
totally new help system (yea!)
v3.01 11-12-91 - fixed extra '%' char left when going from
100% to <100%
allow config file to take on same name as
executable; in case you rename XE.EXE
v3.02 11-18-91 - fixed bug when executing from second level
or deeper sub-dir.
v3.1 11-25-91 - fixed configuration file saving problem
added ALT+1 thru ALT+9 commands (goto
marked position)
restricted input length for base conversion
v3.2 01-23-92 - added colorbox for color selection, instead
of entering numbers.
v3.3 01-29-92 - XE.CFG file is now history. Color
information is saved in the executable
added cmd line options /C, /M, /?, ?, /H
slight (very) improvement in display speed
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 18 ---
restore cursor from a Ctrl-Brk input
no more editing past the EOF
v3.31 02-05-92 - fixed byte search problem with char case
v3.32 02-07-92 - fixed byte search problem with char case
(this time for real. haste makes waste...)
v3.33 02-23-92 - change Loadfile box to show files in the
current directory of a drive (previously
root dir)
v3.4 04-04-92 - added ability to abort searching
update '%' into file indicator during search
added Alt+A for ASCII chart cmd from View mode
added Alt+B for Base convert cmd from View mode
cursor is positioned at location of last search
item when going to edit mode; if that search
item is visible on screen in same file
changed default colors a little
file list in Loadfile box is now sorted by name
fixed PgUp bug in Loadfile box
v3.5 04-23-92 - implemented the Boyer-Moore search algorithm
for a definite improvement in search
speed
v3.51 06-10-92 - fixed search routine bug
v3.52 06-29-92 - ditto
v3.53 08-10-92 - allow 'C' (change colors) command in mono;
so you can save the mono colors to XE.
v3.54 12-10-92 - allow ESC while editing when only half of
a byte has been changed.
v3.6 02-06-93 - show offset of cursor when editing
line wrap cursor when moving
v3.61 04-03-93 - fix display for files > 9999999 bytes long
set highlight bar to last position in
Load file box
v3.62 04-10-93 - fix runtime error when specifying a legal
but unused drive letter on cmd line.
v3.63 04-19-93 - minor change to an included unit
v3.64 04-22-93 - allow Hidden attribute bit change on a
subdirectory (via F7 in Loadfile box)
v3.65 09-16-93 - fix dash/dots not showing up in display
v4.00 12-9-93 - added ALT+D command, shell to DOS/other prog
added history function for searching and
goto offset command
editing cmd ESC, now prompts to discard
chgs or not
changed included unit so Loadfile box can
load 2500 files versus 300!
check for DOS v3.0+ otherwise exit
check available memory, exit if not enough
v4.10 02-16-94 - filename first char search in Loadfile box
take out available memory check
XEOPT environment var for options
if offset display is octal and you're at an
offset > 777777777 octal, dsply +++++++++
for offset
v4.11 03-23-94 - fix backspace key not backing up a line
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 19 ---
v4.12 07-12-94 - chg Loadfile box to check for remote drives,
config.sys LASTDRIVE value not used anymore
check for DOS v3.1+ otherwise exit
v4.13 07-21-94 - display date/time in Loadfile box of dirs
display volumeid of local, fixed drives
surround drive letter with symbols
representing the device type
v4.14 08-03-94 - fix vol label display bug in Loadfile box
v4.15 08-07-94 - fix .HLP filename construction bug
v4.16 08-13-94 - fix .HLP filename construction bug
2. Trademark information
'Turbo Pascal' and 'Turbo Debugger' are registered trademarks
of Borland International, Inc.
'PKLITE' is a registered trademark of PKWARE, Inc.
--- heXEdit ------------------------------------- Page 20 ---
