Power Utilities

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Power Utilities / Power Utilities.iso / utility / pro203 / wiz.doc < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1992-10-14 | 21.8 KB | 635 lines

WIZ version 2.0 by Ray Van Tassle 1020 Fox Run Lane Algonquin, Ill, 60102 (708)-658-4941 May 20, 1991 Abstract: WIZ is a lightning-fast file finder. It will find file(s) based on full wildcard specifications (more powerful than standard DOS wildcard), and can also filter by file size and date. It can: * select only executable files (EXE, COM, BAT). * select only archive files (ZIP, ARC, etc.) * switch you to the disk\directory of a file that it found. * execute a DOS command for each file it finds. * look inside archives (ZIP & ARJ) It will look on multiple disk drives for all matching filenames. WIZ program and manual copyright (c) 1991 by Ray Van Tassle. WIZ is shareware, NOT freeware!!! You are granted a limited 21 day evaluation license. At the end of that period, you should either delete it and stop using it, or send in the registration fee of $15. MANUAL ------ I was tempted to call this program YAFF (yet another file finder), but I settled on WIZ. This is a funny acronym for "where is". But it's also short for WIZARD, because it's so fast it seems like magic, and it's filename matching is so powerful. It looks on one or more disks for all filenames (including directories) that match the specified filename. By default, it starts on drive C, and goes up until it runs out of disks. It has been tested, and works, with DOS 3.x, including DOS 3.31, DOS 4.01, and On-Track partitioning software. DOS 3.31 and 4.01 have large (greater than 32MB) partitions with more than 65,536 sectors. On-Track has large partitions by virtue of using large sectors (1024, 2048, or 4096 bytes, rather than 512 bytes). I do not have MS-DOS 5.0, but a beta-tester has reported to me that WIZ works on it. WIZ normally prints out, for each matching file, the filename, date, time, size, and path. The files are NOT ordered or sorted. All "special" files (hidden, system) are flagged with a left-pointing triangle after the filename. Optionally, it will list the files in normal fully-pathed form (e.g., C:\UTIL\PGMS\ABC.BAT), suitable for processing by a program which expects normal filenames. When the found file is inside an archive (-l flag), it will be listed in a form suitable for the archiver (e.g., "C:\UTIL\PGMS\FOO.ZIP FILE.EXE") I deemed that most of the time, people (including me) want it to be FAST, rather than in some particular order. As it reads the disk, it tries to optimize the head motion, so directories are not processed in order of path, but in the order that WIZ thinks will be quickest. However, it will generally look at the files in a directory before it looks at the sub-directories. However (especially if you have directories with lots of files and sub-directories), it may show some files in a directory, then show sub-directories, then show more files in the directory. PERFORMANCE & Comparison with other file-find programs ------------------------------------------------------ Some tests, run on a 10MHZ AT, searching for a non-existent file on a large disk partitioned into drives C thru K, 8002 total files, 184MB in files, in 436 directories. Search WIZ WHEREIS Norton FF string V2.0 V4.0 V4.5 -------- ---------- ----------- ------------ zzz.zzz 0:13 1:32 1:42 *.zzz 0:15 2:00 (*) 1:51 *.*zz 0:17 2:00 can't *.zz* 0:15 2:01 1:51 (*) file_specifier was `*.* "?.zzz" ' Looking inside archives (ZIP & LZH): WIZ SST 5.2a ------- -------- 24 archives, ?? files 0:13 0:18 418 archives. 4700 files 3:02 4:02 (Note: SST v5.2 is the new name for WHEREIS v5.2) WHEREIS V4.0 (and some others) can look within more types of ARC, ZIP, etc. files than WIZ handles. But WIZ is much faster than any other file-finder (including Norton's), and it's wildcard ability is much more powerful than most, and easier to use than most others that are equally powerful. WIZ is also much smaller than these other programs. Norton FF v4.5 is 9K, WHEREIS v4.0 is 22K, WIZv2.0 is 10K SSTv5.2a is 44K. ERRORLEVEL exit codes --------------------- 0 = Normal exit. 1 = Normal exit. -g changes disk/path 2 = Bad command line. 255 = Internal error. Error Messages -------------- "Can't tell if FAT-12 or FAT-16. Assuming FAT-16!" Just what it says. I've only seen this on networked disk drives. If you know how to RELIABLY tell what type of FAT a disk has (other than doing thru DOS), please let me know. "malloc failed for FAT_buf!" Can't allocate memory to read a FAT block. Most likely an internal error. "malloc failed for dir_sec_buf!" Can't allocate memory to read in a directory sector. Most likely an internal error. "Sorry, out of memory!!!" You lose. "Can't open file:" Failure to open an archive file. Most likely a disk error. Run CHKDSK. "Internal error in ZIP/LZH/ARJ file" The data read from in archive file isn't as expected. Most likely the archive has a new format, and WIZ hasn't yet been updated. BUGS ---- No known bugs. However, WIZ mostly does not use DOS to process a disk, so errors on my part, or a change in the disk structure might break it. The most major bug reported was on huge disk partitions under MS-DOS 4.01. This bug caused WIZ to read a random block from the disk, and treat it as a directory. It made a valiant attempt to march down all the phoney sub-directories, and would actually run for quite a while before printing one of the "malloc failure" messages. If you are having problems, try 1) use the "-v" switch, to isolate the error to a specific disk, 2) use "-vv", to see as it hits each sub-directory, 3) use "*.*" to see all the files, and watch until it walks off the edge of the world. Then call or write me. Command Line format and Switches -------------------------------- WIZ [disks:]file_pattern [-sN] [-dN] [-nN] [-p] [-gN] [-x] [-a] [-v] [-l] [-cS] [-?] [>output-file-name] As usual, the stuff inside the square brackets "[]" are optional and may be present or omitted. You do NOT include the brackets in your command line. The various fields and options may appear in any order, in either upper or lower case. The switch character can be either "-" or "/". You can have more than one set of "[disk:]pattern", and it does the correct thing. That is, it scans each set in turn. So you can say: "WIZ c:pyro* cd:*.cfg *.ovr". Except for size (-s) and date (-d), the options may be run together. For example: "WIZ -g20xp" is the same as "WIZ -g20 -x -p". If you just invoke WIZ without any parameters, it gives you a brief help line. For more info, include '-?'. For even more, include '-??'. Disk(s): & filename_pattern --------------------------- 1) [disks:]pattern 2) pattern 3) :pattern With format 1, you specify the disk(s) you want it to look at, followed by ":". It will look at those drives, in the order you listed them. If you list the same one twice, it will look at it twice. With format 2, it will look at all drives beginning with C. It will stop when it hits a drive that it cannot read. With format 3, it will look at all drives beginning with A. It will stop when it hits a drive that it cannot read, except A & B. If the floppy drive has a disk in, it will look at it, otherwise it will ignore the floppy drive. You do not (and cannot) specify path or directory names, because WIZ searches an entire disk. PATTERN: -------- I call it "pattern" rather than "filename", because WIZ does a full pattern-match against the actual filenames it reads from the disk. The pattern has three special characters (called meta-characters), plus all the other characters possible in a filename. 1) "*" (star) 2) "?" (question mark) 3) "." (dot), 1) "*" This is the "rubber" wildcard meta-character. The star will match as many characters as possible, from none to the entire filename. It is "rubber", because it will shrink & stretch to match as many characters as required. 2) "?" This is the "single" wildcard meta-character. It will match exactly ONE character in the filename. 3) "." This is the "separator" meta-character (it is NOT a wildcard character). If you specify a dot in the pattern, the disk filename (and the pattern) is treated as having two parts, one before the dot, and one after the dot. Each part undergoes it's own pattern matching. If you don't have any meta-characters in the filename pattern, WIZ appends a "*" on the end of what you specified. Proper pattern matching (like WIZ does) is almost a D.W.I.M. (do what I mean) operation. DOS's wildcards are so primitive that it is professionally embarrassing. Not only that, but the pattern-matching subroutine in WIZ is only a couple of dozen lines of code. And it's surprisingly (at least to me) fast. To give some examples: *A* means: any file which has an A anywhere in it, on either side of the dot. Z* Any file that starts with a Z (ZZBC.BAT Z.Z) ?. Any filename that has exactly one character in it, and has no extent. (A. B. but not AB. or A.BAT) ?* Any filename that isn't totally blank. A*T any file that starts with A and ends with T in the extent. (ABCDE.BAT A.T AB.ERT but not ABCERT.) A*T. any file that starts with A and ends with T, and has no extent. (ABCERT. but not ABCERT.RST) A*T.* any file that starts with A and ends with T, whether or not it has an extent. (ABCERT. ABCERT.RST ABCDET.COM) A*B*Z.* any file that starts with A then somewhere to the right has a B, then ends with Z, and has any extent. (ABZ.BAT AMNOBPQRZ. ABYXZ.COM) *.C any file with an extent of C W*.C any file that starts with W and has a C extent. (W.C WIZ.C WIZ14.C) W*4.C any file that starts with W, ends with 4, and has an extent of C. ???.C any file that has exactly 3 characters in the name, and an extent of C. Directories also participate in the filename matching. A lot of other whereis programs don't tell you about directory names that match. I find this annoying, because many times I can remember the directory name (or at least part of it), but not the file names. This is especially true for things that I have downloaded. Since directories normally don't have an extent (although they can), for matching purposes a directory that does not have an extent is treated as if it has a blank extent, so it has a dot. But when it is printed out, this implied dot isn't printed. POPDROP. will match the directory name "POPDROP" and the filename "POPDROP.", but not "POPDROP.COM" POPDROP.* will match all of the above POPDROP will match all of the above, but also POPDROP2.COM etc. -s Size qualifier ----------------- Files may be further filtered by their size. Either or both minimum and maximum size may be specified. A file will match only if it's size falls between the two limits, inclusive. Note that a directory, while it is really a file, is not considered to have a size, so directories will NEVER show up if you give a size qualifier. This gives a way to never show directories: just add "-s0". All other files have a size that is greater than or equal to zero. -s[low_limit][:hi_limit] -s100 Files that are 100 or more bytes large. -s:10000 Files that are 10000 or less bytes large. -s500:600 Files whose size is greater than or equal to 500 bytes, and less than or equal to 600 bytes. -s1000:1000 Files that are exactly 1000 bytes large. -d Date qualifier ----------------- Files may also be filtered by date. Either or both lowest & highest date may be specified. A file will match only if it's date falls between the two limits, inclusive. -d[low_date][:high_date] The format for date is MM/DD/YY or MM-DD-YY. The year can be given as either "91" or "1991". -d1/1/90 Files dated on or after Jan 1, 1990. -d:12-31-87 Files dated on or before Dec 31, 1987. -d1-1-90:12-31-1990 Files dated anytime in 1990. -d12/12/90:11/11/90 No files---it's impossible for a file to be dated after Dec 12, 1990 and before Nov 11, 1990 (inclusive) -nOPT debugging options ------------------------ The numeric value "OPT" is a bit-flag that is used to control internal operation for debugging. I only document it because I HATE programs that have undocumented switches. -p List in canonical pathname format --------------------------------------- The matching files are listed in normal DOS format: disk:\path\name.ext If the "-l" flag ("look inside archives") is given, the format is: disk\path\archive-name.zip filename.ext Date, time, size are not given. This type of list is presumably going to be fed into a program as a list of files, so directories will not be listed. -g Go to directory ---------------------- This will change your path to the disk & directory of the Nth file in the list of files that matched. If you omit N, it will change to the path if exactly one matching file is found. If that file is a directory, WIZ will set the path to that directory. On the other hand, if it is a file, WIZ will set the path to be the directory that the file is in. How do you know what N to give? Well, first try "-g" all by itself. If it finds only one, it will go there. If it finds several, do it again, only this time, give it the number. (If you have a decent disk-cache program, this 2nd search will be VERY fast, as the directory blocks are probably in the cache.) Obviously, if N is larger than the number of files that match, nothing will happen. -g5 Will change to the path of the 5th listed file. -g1 Will change to the path of the first listed file. -g Will change to the path of the one and only listed file. If several are listed, the path will not be changed. -x Executable files ---------------------- This switch will set a pre-filter, and select only executable files (.BAT, .COM, .EXE) that pass the other filters (size, date, pattern). For this to work properly, the pattern should either not have a dot, or terminate with ".*" (because this is just an additional filter, albeit one with three holes). I added this because a lot of times I find myself looking for a handy but seldom-used program, and I can never remember if it's a COM or an EXE file. And if I put "*FOO*.*", WIZ lists everything, including the directory, DOC, README, etc. -a Archive files ------------------- This works just like "-x", except it's for archive files. These are ZIP, ARC, LZH, ZOO, ARJ, PAK. -v Verbose ------------- If you have this flag once, WIZ will print the disk name when it starts as it starts on a disk. If you have it twice (-vv), it will also print the name of each directory as it starts processing it. This is mostly useful for trouble shooting, or to see a progress indication. -l Look inside archives -------------------------- This switch will make it look inside archives (ZIP, LZH, and ARJ archives only), for a matching filespec. Note that all the filters apply to the file INSIDE the archive, and NOT to the archive itself. The disk list will, however, still specify the disks to look at. It is not possible to scan for files and inside archives at the same time--this would have added too much complexity to the code. Both PKZIP and ARJ come with information on the internal format of their archive files, including the header. Neither LHARC nor LHA do, but it was pretty easy for me to figure out. I do ZIP's because that is currently the most common type of archive. LHA compresses smaller, but lacks a few features, and is slower in compressing. ARJ is the BEST. It packs 5% - 10% tighter than ZIP (but is slower in compressing), and includes all the nice features of ZIP, including encryption, comments, etc, and also can automagically create a segmented archive, so you can put a huge archive onto several floppy disks, without having to use SLICE/SPLICE. It also comes with a handy utility to convert any other archive type to ARJ's. I didn't do any other archivers, because 1) I don't have information on the internal format, 2) these three are the most common, and best, and 3) I don't want WIZ to get any larger than necessary. -c Execute a command ------------------------- This lets you execute a DOS command for each matching file. The format is '-cCOMMAND' or '-c COMMAND'. However, if the COMMAND has any special characters (space, |, <, >, etc.) you must enclose it in quotes: '-c"COMMAND"'. Each occurance (if any) of the character "*" in the command is replaced by the complete file-name (including disk and path). WIZ will spawn a new copy of the command-line shell (COMMAND.COM, 4DOS, etc.), and pass it the built command. The one exception is that the command "del*" or "del *" (to delete the file) is handled internally by WIZ itself. (Note that you can use the form: '-cdel*', and you do not need a space before the '*', nor do you need to enclose the command in quotes.) For this command, WIZ will prompt you to confirm each file to be deleted. (I did this because deleting files is a handy thing to do, and it's quicker to do it inside of WIZ that to spawn a shell to do it. But I'm no fool!! You have to confirm that you want delete, for each file. No way am I going to let it merrily delete every file on my disk(s) just because I make one little mistake on the command line!!) If you prefer to have the shell handle the file deletions, use "erase *" or "delete *". You can't do "-cdel*" along with "-l". If you have given the -l switch, the '*" is replaced with the complete filename of the archive (.ZIP, .LZH, .ARJ), a space, and then the filename. Examples: -c"type *" -- type each matching file -c"more <*" -- ditto, with a pause for each page -c"copy * a:\" -- copy each matching file to A: -c"set" -- display the environment at each matching file. -c"pkunzip *" -- extract matching files from a ZIP archive. Coming Attractions ------------------ An interactive screen interface. It will gather the file names instead of just printing them out. Then you will be able to sort by name, extent, disk, date, size. You'll also be able to tag files and delete, copy, move them, and find duplicates. Plus other things I think of, or get suggested. This is shareware, so I'm more interested and receptive in hearing comments and suggestions than a commercial software publisher would be. Just send them in, or give me a call. I can't promise to fix bugs, or add specific features, but I'll listen to everything. Even if you're cheap and haven't registered. Update History -------------- 1.6 Initial public release 1.7 Bug fixes 1.8 Changed "-g" operation. Quit as soon as we hit the correct one. Sound an alarm bell when we set disk/directory. 1.81 (not released) * Fix for huge disks. I tested with 100+ MB disk, but failed to test with a nearly full disk. Result=BUG!! -- (overflow in intermediate calculation, converting cluster to sector number.) Thanks, Eddie, for running DOS 4.01 with one huge >32MB partition--which all the gurus recommend against! 1.9 * Fixed bug in handling full root directory. * Changes in walking the directory tree. Made it non-recursive; changed the way I collect pathname to print. * Added -c switch. * Fix bug in handling a sub-directory that is exactly and evenly full, with no next cluster. 1.91 * Slightly faster * Added -a switch 2.00 * Slightly smaller and faster. * Creeping featurism!! * Added -l switch, to look inside archives * Decided that the ability to look inside achives should signify a new major version, so it's now 2.0 ******** Programming notes (if anyone is interested): The way I scan thru the disk, it pretty much sweeps thru the disk from front to back, without (much) hopping back & forth. So it scans the 1st cluster of ALL the directories and sub-directories on the disk, then makes a pass thru the FAT (from start to end within the FAT), and so on. This optimization of head movement really helps to speed it up, especially if you don't have a fast disk. The unfortunate side effect is that it looks at a directory one chunk at a time, interspersed with chunks of other directories. But it sure is fast!! -------------------------- INVOICE / REGISTRATION -------------------------- Sold to: ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ Date: ______________________________ ============================================================ _____ copies of WIZ version 2.0 at $15 each $____________ TOTAL ENCLOSED....... $____________ Where did you get your copy of WIZ? Shareware distributor name:___________________ BBS name: ____________________ BBS phone #: ____________________ Send this invoice and your check to: Ray Van Tassle 1020 Fox Run Lane Algonquin, Il. 60102 (708)-658-4941 ============================================================= Thank you for your support ............... Ray Van Tassle