Best of Big Blue Disk/bbdbest.zip/INDEXER.TXT

Text File | 1987-09-15 | 15KB | 319 lines

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^C^1Disk Indexer
^Cby
^CDaniel Tobias

   You've been using your PC for a while.  You've probably built up quite a
stack of diskettes containing the programs, data files, text files, etc., that
you have been working on.  Most likely, you often forget which disk a given
file is on and have to do a long, tedious search.

   Or maybe you upgraded to a hard disk and thought that it would solve all of
your problems.  However, as you created more and more subdirectories and sub-
subdirectories to hold everything, you faced a similar problem when it came to
remembering just which subdirectory contained some elusive file.

   DISK INDEXER will solve these problems.  It will let you create a master
index of a collection of floppy disks, or all or part of a hard disk.  The
index is an alphabetized list of the files on all indexed disks, along with
their size, creation date, and (most importantly) where they can be located.
You can output all or selected parts of this index to your screen or printer.

   DISK INDEXER has many options and features.  The best thing to do is to
print out this text and have it in front of you as you go through the program.
What follows is a description of the items on the menu.  Many of these items
invoke sub-menus; in each of these menus, you can return to the main menu by
pressing the ESC key.


^C(I)ndex disks

   Select I to index disks, and you will be prompted to "Insert disk to
index."  DISK INDEXER will expect to find this disk in drive A.  (Later, you
will find out how to change this in order to use other floppy or hard disk
drives.)  Place any MS-DOS formatted disk (for example, BIG BLUE DISK, or your
MS-DOS system disk) in drive A and press the space bar.  If you really didn't
want to index disks, press ESC to return to the menu.

   Next, DISK INDEXER will tell you the disk I.D.  The I.D., which is obtained
from the volume label, will be used in your index as an indication of where
each file is, so make sure it reflects the name by which you know the disk.

   This disk has a label of "BOBBD VOL 1", so that is what will show as its
I.D. if that is the disk you inserted.

   Press the ENTER key to accept the I.D. as given, or press the backspace key
to use a different string.  If you decide you really didn't want to index that
disk, press ESC to get back to the previous prompt; press ESC again to return
to the menu.

   Once you press ENTER, the disk's directory will be read, sorted, and added
to your index.  DISK INDEXER will tell you how many files it added to the
index, and prompt for another disk.  Continue inserting disks to index, and
repeat the above sequence for each disk.  When done, press ESC instead of the
space bar when prompted to insert a disk.

   If DISK INDEXER encounters more than one file of the same name under the
same disk I.D. (as might happen if you should insert the same disk twice
during the indexing process), only one entry of that filename will be kept;
file size and date information for this entry will be taken from the most
recently inserted disk with that file.  Duplicate filenames with different
disk I.D.'s will appear in the index as many times as there were occurrences
of that filename with different I.D.'s.


^C(D)rive/Path/Mask Selection Options

   Here is where you tell DISK INDEXER which drive to use.  The default is
drive A, but you can indicate any drive or path.  Selecting the D command from
the main menu brings you a submenu containing three modifyable parameters.

   Option 1 lets you enter a new value in standard MS-DOS syntax for the drive
and path to search.  For example, "A:\" selects the root directory of drive A,
"C:\" selects the root directory of drive C (usually a hard disk), and "C:"
(with no backslash) selects the current directory of drive C.

   Normally, if you are indexing floppy disks, you will use "A:\", which is
the default value when you start DISK INDEXER.  For indexing a hard disk,
"C:\" is the normal value if you are starting at the root; you can also select
a subdirectory like "C:\GAMES\" if you only want to index parts of the disk.
You may enter subdirectory names with or without a terminating backslash; a
backslash (\) will be added automatically to the end of the string you type if
its last character is not already a backslash or colon.

   Option 2 will toggle the Recursive Directory Search option.  If this option
is on, DISK INDEXER will automatically search for and index all subdirectories
of a directory it has just indexed.  This continues recursively, so that if
you start at the root directory, all directories of the disk will be indexed.
This option is primarily of use when you wish to index your whole hard disk,
but it can also be used on floppies with subdirectories, to make sure all
files are indexed.

   Option 3 allows you to set a file mask.  This is a MS-DOS wildcard
expression, used to specify which files on your disks will be indexed. The
default is "*.*", which means all files.

   You can change this to index only selected files; for instance, using the
mask "*.BAS" will limit the index to files with a .BAS extension. A mask of
"TEST*.*" will index only files whose names begin with "TEST".


^C(F)ile type selection options

   This command allows more choices regarding which files are indexed.  In
this section, you can press the number keys 1 through 4 to toggle between
including and excluding several types of files.

   Option 1 is zero-length files; these are files, like the delimiter files of
BIG BLUE DISK, that have only a directory entry, but no data.  These are
generally used only to make the directory listing more attractive; you
probably don't want them in your index.  Thus, you can turn this option off so
that these files are not included.

   Options 2 and 3 refer to hidden and system files respectively.  These are
special file types which don't normally show in your directory.  The MS-DOS
program itself is contained in system files on your system disk.  Some utility
programs can convert data files into hidden files so that others can't see
where they are.  These sorts of files will not normally be indexed by DISK
INDEXER, but if you toggle these options, they will be included.

   Option 4 lets you choose whether or not to index the file COMMAND.COM. This
file is on all bootable disks, so you may have many copies in your disk
collection.  Hence, you might wish to turn this off so that this file does not
appear in your index.

   The default when you start DISK INDEXER is to include zero-length files and
COMMAND.COM, but exclude hidden and system files.  This means that all files
that are visible in a normal DIR listing will get indexed, and no others.


^C(P)ick system for getting disk ID

   This section allows you to choose how DISK INDEXER finds the name of each
disk or subdirectory.  This information can be obtained in one of several
ways, selectable by pressing a number from 1 to 4, or using the up and down
arrows to move a pointer between these four items.  There is also a fifth
option which can be toggled independently of these.  The choices are as
follows:

(1) Use the disk volume label, which MS-DOS adds when you format a disk.

(2) If you are indexing your collection of issues of BIG BLUE DISK,
use the STATUS.DAT file, which contains the issue number information.

(3) For indexing hard disks (or floppies which contain subdirectories) use the
pathname of each directory.

(4) You can be prompted to type a name for each disk or directory as it is
indexed.

(5) You may also choose to have the I.D. value confirmed before you proceed
with indexing; this will give you a chance to see what data is being used and
change it if you wish.  Or you can disable the confirmation, so the indexing
goes faster.  Press 5 to toggle this option.  If you do a recursive directory
search, you'll probably want to turn the confirmation option off; otherwise,
there will be a pause at each subdirectory.


^C(R)ead index data file from disk.

   When you select this option, you will be prompted for a filename.  This
should be the name of a file which you have previously saved with the W
command (described below).  All index data in this file will be loaded,
overwriting any index data already in memory.


^C(W)rite index data to disk.

   This option will prompt you for a filename, then save the index data, so
that it can later be loaded with the R command described above, or merged with
the M command described below.


^C(E)dit or delete index data.

   Once you have created a large index, you might decide that there are some
entries that shouldn't be there, or aren't quite the way you wanted; thus, an
edit feature lets you select one or more entries and manually change the data
in the selected records, or delete them entirely.  This editing can be
performed on the data in memory, or in a disk file previously created through
the W command or through merges.

   There are six options on this sub-menu, as follow:

   Option 1 will toggle between the "Edit" and "Delete" functions. Edit lets
you make changes in the data in a record, while Delete removes the record
entirely.

   Option 2 lets you input a search string to indicate what records to select.
A search string is any ASCII string.  How it is used depends on the status of
option 3 below.

   Option 3 toggles between looking for the search string in the filename or
the I.D. (location) string of each record.  In either case, records will be
selected if the search string occurs at any point in the appropriate field.
For example, the string "RAT" would select "RATES.DAT", "BRAT.TXT", and
"MUSK.RAT".  (Note that this works differently from MS-DOS wildcard
expressions; the * and ? operators are not supported here.)

   Option 4 toggles between pausing to confirm each selected record, or just
performing the requested action without a pause.  Enable this option if you
wish to be given a choice of whether to edit (or delete) each record
individually.

   Option 5 toggles between performing the edit or delete directly in memory
or in a disk file.

   Option 6 lets you input the name of the index file you want to edit, if you
have used option 5 to edit or delete in a disk file.

   Option 7 will perform the edit or delete function.  In the case of an edit,
all fields of the entry will be displayed, and you can change any of them
except the filename by typing the appropriate number and entering a new value.


^C(C)lear the index data in memory.

   This command causes all index data in memory to be cleared, so that you can
start fresh with a new index.


^C(M)erge index data.

   DISK INDEXER will index up to 5000 files, provided you have sufficient
memory.  (640K systems handle 5000 files; 256K systems support a little over
1300 files; other memory configurations should have limits somewhere in
between.)  You will be warned when the limits are close to being reached.

   This should be sufficient for garden-variety indexing, but if you want to
make a really massive index of your entire disk collection, your 30-megabyte
hard disk, or all of the above, you might run out of room.  Thus, still
another option has been provided.  The Merge command will merge the data in
memory into a previously-saved index data file, or merge two index data files.
(It will also merge a disk file into memory, but this is of course subject to
the limitations on the number of entries in memory.)  Thus you can keep
indexing until you approach the 5000-file limit, save the data to disk; next
clear the data and start a new index with the rest of your disks; and finally
merge the two indexes together to create a fully-alphabetized index containing
everything.  In this way, you can produce indexes that are limited only by the
disk storage space.

   You choose which type of merge to perform by pressing a number from 1 to 3,
or using the up and down arrow keys to move a pointer between the options,
Merge Memory to Disk File, Merge Disk File to Disk File, and Merge Disk File
to Memory.

   4 lets you select the input file name, if applicable.  5 lets you select
the output file name, if applicable.  6 performs the merge.


^C(O)utput an index report.

   Once you have completed an index, you can output a report of all or
selected files to your screen or printer.  Selecting this command brings up
the following options:

   Option 1 toggles whether the report will be based on the index data in
memory, or a disk file.

   Option 2 toggles whether the output is to the screen or the printer.

   Option 3 lets you select the filename to read, if the report is to be of a
disk file.

   Option 4 lets you input a search string; this works in the same manner as
the search string for the Edit function.

   Option 5 toggles between finding the search string in the filename or the
I.D. string.

   Option 6 prints the report.


^C(S)ave parameters to a file.

   Since there are a number of parameters controlling different options of
this program, and your preferred values might not agree with the defaults
specified by the programmer, there is an option to save the parameters to a
disk file.  When you later load the parameters from the saved file, all the
choices and options will be set to what they were when you saved them.  You
can specify a filename to save, so you can save several sets of parameters --
perhaps one for indexing floppies and another for a hard disk.


^C(L)oad parameters from a file.

   This command will load parameters which have been saved with the S command.


^C(V)iew directory of a disk.

   This command lets you see a list of the files on a disk.  This is helpful if
you want to find the name of the index or parameter data files you have saved,
or you wish to see what is on a disk before you index it.  You will be
prompted for a drive/path/mask specification in the standard MS-DOS syntax.
For example, "C:\STUFF\*.*" will give you all files in the subdirectory STUFF
of drive C, while "A:*.TXT" will show you all files with the extension ".TXT"
on the disk in drive A.


^C(Q)uit.

   This command causes DISK INDEXER to exit, and return you to BIG BLUE DISK.

   If you do disk swapping in the course of indexing disks and/or saving your
index data to your own disk, be sure to replace BIG BLUE DISK (and your MS-DOS
disk, if necessary) in the same drives they were in at the time you started
running DISK INDEXER, before you exit the program.  Otherwise, you might
encounter difficulty re-connecting to the BIG BLUE DISK menu.

   To run this program outside BEST OF BIG BLUE DISK, type: ^1PASRUN INDEXER^0.

DISK FILES THIS PROGRAM USES:
^FINDEXER.CHN
^FPASRUN.COM
^FRETURN.CHN