home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Night Owl 9
/
Night Owl CD-ROM (NOPV9) (Night Owl Publisher) (1993).ISO
/
016a
/
fixcntrl.zip
/
FIXCNTRL.DOC
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1993-05-26
|
5KB
|
97 lines
FIXCNTRL.EXE - cuts unwanted conferences from QWK control.dat files
===================================================================
syntax: fixcntrl [n] where n - 1 is an [optional] highest numbered
conference to leave in the file. Default is 999.
purpose: Some older QWK readers were set up to handle only a limited
number of conferences. For example, PowerQWK (PQ 2.15) uses
pseudo-conference #1000 as its storage area for the user's
personal messages. When Channel One BBS in Cambridge, MA
added conference slots for a few hundred "rsrvd" conferences
in early 1993 it overran PQ's limits, and message traffic in
the CH1 Main Board indicated some other readers may have been
affected as well.
The file "control.dat" in the QWK packet contains a list of
all the active conferences on the BBS. If you are using the
QMAIL door, it can be instructed to send only the conferences
which you have selected in control.dat - but this is a poor
solution, as you can't use offline processing to join a new
conference if your reader doesn't know it exists, and you
may prefer the facilities in Cam-mail or another door.
Fixcntrl.exe will remove conferences above #999 (or another
number you specify) from the control.dat file, making it
palatable to older QWK readers like PQ. Of course, the
inevitable tradeoff is that your reader cannot access these
removed conferences.
I wrote fixcntrl.exe specifically to make PQ 2.15 work with
Channel One, but it may also be useful with other QWK readers
or on other BBSs. It is intended to be run from a batch file.
The control.dat file must be extracted from the QWK file and
available in the current working directory when fixcntrl is run,
although fixcntrl itself can be anywhere on the path. If
fixcntrl fails for any reason (can't find control.dat, disk
full, etc.) it returns errorlevel 1, which can be tested in
your batch file. Here is an excerpt from mine:
========
:channel1
md mtemp
cd mtemp
copy c:\data\zc\channel1.qwk .
lha e channel1.qwk control.dat
fixcntrl
if errorlevel 1 goto uhoh
lha u -m channel1.qwk control.dat
copy channel1.qwk c:\data\zc\mail\in\channel1.qwk
copy channel1.qwk c:\data\zc\doncha.qwk
del c:\data\zc\channel1.qwk
del /y *.*
cd ..
rd mtemp
return
:uhoh
{...error processing...}
========
By default, fixcntrl.exe will remove all conferences numbered
999 or above from the control.dat file. You can optionally
specify a highest numbered conference to retain, which should
be one higher than the highest conference number you need (to
take the Main Board, conference #0, into account). For example,
"fixcntrl 7" would retain the Main Board (conf #0) and confs
1 through 6 (for a total of 7), and discard all the others.
If you specify a number higher than the number of conferences
on the BBS control.dat will remain unchanged, and most silly
entries (fixcntrl -33 or fixcntrl 100000) should revert to the
default, although I'll bet you can break this if you try hard
enough. Your original control.dat file will be irreversibly
overwritten by fixcntrl.exe - so you should probably experiment
on a copy of control.dat from an old QWK file to assure yourself
that all is well. (Control.dat is a plain ASCII file that you
can read with LIST or any ASCII editor. Line #11 is the number
of conferences, minus one. Try "fixcntrl 4" on a spare copy
of control.dat to see how it works. You should end up with 3
on line #11, and conferences 0-3 listed after). Fixcntrl.exe
retains all the optional user statistics information (time
used, # of downloads, etc.) which is appended to control.dat by
Cam-Mail and other mail doors, so it is available for your
reader to display if it has this function.
warranty: None. I wrote fixcntrl.exe for myself, and it works for me.
You are free to use it if you'd like to, with no obligation
whatsoever and entirely at your own risk. If you run into
trouble with fixcntrl.exe, you may leave a message on the Main
Board at Channel One (617-354-8873) and I'll see if I can help
you out, but as far as "support" goes, that's it. Have fun!
Ken Haverly
May 26, 1993