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JCSM Shareware Collection 1993 November
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JCSM Shareware Collection - 1993-11.iso
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cl760
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curvpltj.lzh
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ENVIRO.DOC
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1992-01-09
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CRVPLOT "HELP" and "environment variables":
------------------------------------------
If you will be running CRVPLOT from the directory CRVPLOT.RH is on, you do
not need to set an environment variable. However, it is often convenient
to run CRVPLOT from a directory where you keep files related to a project:
C:
┌─────────┬───────┬─────┴─────┬──────────┬───────┐
\PROJA \PROJB \DOS \CRV \WP \CALC
│ │
├FILE1 ├CRVPLOT.EXE
│ │
├FILE2 ├CRVPLOT.RH <─────────┐
│ │(help file) │
│ │ │
┌─────┴────────────────┐ ┌────────┴────────────────┐ │
If you run CRVPLOT If you run CRVPLOT │
from this directory from here, no environment │
CRVPLOT needs to know variable is required. │
that the HELP file is │
here ────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
CRVPLOT uses "environment variables" to accomplish this.
Environment variables are simple but for some reason difficult to explain.
Briefly, DOS reserves a piece of memory for you to use to store information.
This area of memory is called the "environment". To put something there,
use the DOS SET command. For example,
SET CRVHOME=C:\CRV
The format is: the SET command, then a variable name (CRVHOME) followed
by an "=" followed by a string of characters (C:\CRV). There are virtually
no rules on what the variable name or its "value" can be. It's just a nice
place a user can park some information that's available to any program running
on the system. The only guaranteed thing in the environment is a variable
named COMSPEC which DOS sets to point to COMMAND.COM. To see what's in the
environment, enter the SET command with no arguments.
CRVPLOT will look in the environment space and see if you have set a variable
named CRVHOME. If you have, it will read the "value" of CRVHOME which is
supposed to contain the path to the HELP file named CRVPLOT.RH (on the
distribution disk, this is compressed and stored in CRVHELP.ZIP).
IF ERROR:
If the default space DOS reserved for the environment is too small,
it can be increased by adding the following to your CONFIG.SYS file:
DOS earlier than 3.0: See PC Magazine's book "DOS Power Tools",
1988 edition, pg. 89.
DOS 3.0,3.1 SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM /P /E:18
where the environment size will be 18 paragraphs, 16 bytes ea
DOS 3.2 & above SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM /P /E:512
where the environment size will be 512 bytes
For each of the above, your COMMAND.COM is assumed to be on "C:\".