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============================================================================== L2 Version 2.5 A. Donnie Hale, Jr. Copyright (c) 1992, 1993 An OS/2 2.0 file-viewer utility SANSoft Development 4971 Pegasus Ct. Hilliard, OH 43026 Voice-mail: (614) 898-2675 CompuServe: 74260,1022 ============================================================================== Description ----------- L2 is a text file-viewer utility created for OS/2 2.0 developers and users. It is developed entirely as a 32-bit application (save the text-mode interface, which IBM left as 16-bit). Multiple files may be specified on the command line (now including wildcards!!), and there is no restriction as to the maximum line length of a file. In addition to the standard features of a file-viewer utility, L2 incorporates intelligent tab expansion, multiple text modes, jumping to a specific line number, setting and retrieving of bookmarks, and regular expression searches. Also, because L2 loads the file to be viewed entirely into memory, scrolling, jumping to specific or saved locations, and text searches are extremely fast. Release 2.5 Notes ----------------- A hexidecimal mode has been added!! By modifying the way L2 breaks up an ASCII file into lines, L2 can now load any file, as-is. As a result, L2 loads slightly faster and binary files can be viewed as well! If a binary file is loaded and no CR/LF combinations are found, the file will appear in regular mode as one long line. It is best to switch to hex mode to view binary files. See the section on Hex Mode below for more information. If L2 is run and the current screen mode is not 80x25, L2 maintains the current screen mode. If the screen mode is 80x25, L2 uses the screen mode in its saved configuration (initially 80x30). This support for screen modes INCLUDES 132-column mode!! The MODE command under OS/2 2.0 supports a large number of screen modes, depending on hardware. You may be able to use this program to select a screen mode not internally supported by L2. To better support various screen modes, support for the two low-resolution 80x25 modes has been removed. Version 2.5 fixes a bug in the "Clone L2" function if it couldn't find L2.EXE in the path and it wasn't in the current directory. L2 searches first the current directory, then the directories in the PATH, then the command line for the location of L2.EXE. It then updates that file with the current L2 configuration into L2CLONE.EXE, in the same directory as the L2.EXE file. Some various changes (specifically eliminating C Set/2 library functions in favor of already-being-used OS/2 APIs) yielded about a 9K reduction in size. Release 2.1 Notes ----------------- To improve ease of use, L2 can now be started without any command-line parameters. When this is done, L2 will prompt for a file name or names. Any number of file names (with or without wildcards) may be entered at this prompt, separated by spaces (up to 60 characters total). L2 will treat this list exactly as if it had been entered on the command line. If <Escape> is pressed at this point, L2 will exit. Along with this, while a file is being viewed, the 'N' key will bring up this same prompt to allow viewing a new file while within L2. The same rules for entering file names given above apply here. The expanded list of files will be appended to any current list of files, and the first file found out of the additional files will be displayed. If L2 gets through its entire list of files without being able to load any of them, it will bring up the file prompt. Hitting <Escape> will exit at this point. The number of files that may be contained in the file list has been increased to 256 files. Release 2.0 Notes ----------------- Release 2.0 of L2 incorporates several new features, including wildcard filename expansion and a file-selection list. Command-line arguments passed to L2 which have wildcards ('*' and '?') are expanded into full file names. Arguments without wildcards are left as-is. The F6 and Shift-F6 keys move forward and backward through the expanded list of files. The Ctrl-F6 key brings up a list of all of the expanded file names, with the currently listed file hilited. The desired file may be hilited, and when <Enter> is pressed, that file will be loaded. Up to 50 files may be contained in this expanded file list. If there is a problem loading the next/previous/selected file, a message is displayed, there is a short pause, and the next file in the list is loaded. If L2 gets through the entire list of files without being able to load any of them, it will exit. To work with this capability, the file-search criterion remain across files. Thus, if a search is performed on one file and then a new file is selected, only the 'A' key needs pressed to repeat that search from the top of the new file. The <Esc> key exits L2 altogether. Also, bookmarks maintain the file in which they are set. Thus, if 5 files are in the file list and bookmark 2 is set in file 3, the specified location in file 3 will be returned to when bookmark 2 is retrieved while viewing file 1. Features of L2 -------------- L2 uses "intelligent tab expansion": most text editors allow a tab width to be set. When <Tab> is pressed, the cursor goes to the next multiple of that tab stop on the current line. For example, if the tab width is 4, tab stops would be at columns 1, 5, 9, 13, etc. If the cursor is in column 10 and <Tab> is pressed, the cursor goes to column 13, where the next character will be placed. Editors operate this way so that source code will have correct indentation. Assuming that the tabs are saved in the file, most file-viewers simply display the character after a tab after moving the tab-width number of places to the right. In the previous example, with a tab-width of 4 and a tab at column 10, the standard file-viewer would display the next character at column 14 rather than 13. Thus columns are not aligned correctly, and the file doesn't look the same in the file-viewer as in the editor. L2 corrects this problem by using the tab width for locating tab stops the same way that an editor does. L2 internally supports up to 13 video modes, depending on hardware. Its default mode is 80x30 (720x480). When cycling through video modes, L2 stops at the next valid mode. L2 will support any mode that your hardware supports, including 132-column modes. If L2 is entered in a non-80x25 mode, L2 will stay in that mode. Otherwise, L2 will use its saved configuration screen mode (initially 80x30). Also, L2 supports up to 16 BACKGROUND colors, as well as the standard 16 foreground colors, again, depending on hardware. Specific line numbers may be jumped to. Also, bookmarks may be set and retrieved. This is useful when examining source code and jumping from one function to another and back, etc. L2 supports regular expression searches, so that complex search expressions may be entered and acted on. This goes beyond the capabilities of most file viewers. L2 may now (as of v2.5) be used for viewing binary files. They may appear as one long line in the normal viewing mode; thus it is best to switch to hex mode when viewing binary files. See Hex Mode below for more information. Using L2 -------- First, copy L2.EXE to a directory that is in your PATH statement. Then, to run L2, simply type L2 at an OS/2 2.0 full-screen or windowed prompt (L2 runs much better in full-screen mode), followed by 1 or more file names, and then press <Enter>: L2 filenam1.ext [filenam2.ext [filenam3.ext...]] <Enter> If you run L2 with no file names, L2 will prompt you for the file(s) to view. L2 will be started in its currently configured state. Initially, that is 80 column by 30 row (720x480 pixels), with default colors, tab expansion on, and a tab width of 3. There is a means to change these, described later. L2 comes up with the top of the file displayed starting on the second row, continuing to the next to the bottom row. The top row is an informational / status line as shown below: FILENAME.EXT 9,999,999 9,999,999 +999,999 999,999 MM/DD/YY HH:MM:SS │ │ │ │ │ │ │ file name line # # lines column file size file date file time The column offset area is only displayed when not in the leftmost column. Also, if the file size exceeds 1,000,000 bytes, it will be displayed in terms of the number of kilobytes (e.g. 1,354K). The bottom line on the display is for messages and text input. "Top of file" and "End of file" are examples of the messages displayed there. Text to be input includes the text for searches and line numbers for jumping. Pressing <F1> brings up a simple help screen describing available keys and their functionality. Pressing the Escape key (<Esc>) exits L2. Navigating L2 ------------- The standard navigation keys are used to move throughout the file. These include: Cursor keys () - line/column at a time scrolling, Ctrl-Left, Ctrl-Right - tab-width at a time horizontal scrolling PgUp, PgDn - page up and page down scrolling Home - top of file, stay in current column Ctrl-Home - top of file, column 1 Backspace - go to column 1 End - end of file, column 1 Other navigation keys include: 'G' key - prompted for a line number; go to that line '0' - '9' keys - set bookmarks 0 through 9 Shift '0' - '9' keys - retrieve bookmarks 0 through 9 Note that bookmarks maintain the file, line, and column when they are set. If a bookmark is retrieved which is in a different file than the one being viewed, that file will be switched to and the position retrieved. Searching in L2 --------------- There are three types of searches in L2: case-sensitive text search, case-insensitive text search, and regular expression search. To perform a search, press: 'F' key - perform a case-insensitive search; enter up to 60 characters to search for; escape or 0 length search text cancels the search 'S' key - case-sensitive search, up to 60 characters 'R' key - regular expression search, up to 60 characters in the expression (although the found text may be longer) 'A' key - repeat the last search from the last found text All new searches (i.e., those begun with the 'F', 'S', or 'R' keys) begin at the top of the file. If the text is found, L2 will move to the line containing the text and hilite the text. If the text is not found, a message will be displayed at the bottom of the screen. Pressing 'A' after getting a "Text not found..." message will begin the search again at the top of the file. Pressing 'A' to repeat a search after switching files from the file in which an initial search took place will repeat the initial search from the top of the currently displayed file. This is useful to perform a search in many files without having to re-enter the search text. A repeated text search will begin at the first character after the previously found text. Regular expressions, however, are line-at-a-time searches; therefore, a repeated regular expression search will begin on the line after the line containing the previously found text. The characters available for regular expression searches are: ^ - matches beginning of line $ - matches end of line . - matches any character \ - followed by a single character matches that character, except: \b - backspace \s - space \t - tab \\ - backslash [] - character class [^...] - negative character class * - match 0 or more occurrences of the preceding regular expression | - match expression before | or expression after | Ranges of ASCII characters may be specified in character classes. For instance, [a-zA-Z0-9] matches any alphanumeric character. The characters * . ^ $ are not special characters within a character class. Hex Mode -------- Pressing the 'H' key toggles a file being viewed into and out of hexidecimal mode. When hex mode is entered, L2 determines the point in the file nearest the beginning of the top line of the display which is evenly divisible by 0x10 (decimal 16) and begins displaying from that point. When hex mode is exited, the file is displayed from the same point as before entering hex mode. The following keys are active in hex mode: Cursor keys () - up / down one "row" (16 bytes) PgUp, PgDn - up / down one "screen" Home - top of file End - last screen-full of bytes in file Escape - exit L2 'H' key - exit hex mode The hex mode display consists of 3 columns. The first column represents the byte offset of each row from the top of the file, in 0000:0000 format. Note that a row will always begin at an offset evenly divisible by 0x10 (16 decimal). The second column is a row of 16 bytes, represented by the hexidecimal version of each byte. The third column is the ASCII character for those same 16 bytes. When in hex mode, the file info line at the top of the screen replaces the line count with "Hex Mode" and displays the file size in 0000:0000 format. Configuring L2 -------------- There are several configurable items in L2, including tab expansion (on/off), tab width (2-8), screen colors (text, border, hilite, and help), and video mode. To modify these items, press: 'T' key - toggle tab expansion on/off 'W' key - cycle the tab width from 2-8 spaces 'M' key - cycle the video mode; there are 13 potential video modes, depending on the support your hardware provides, plus the screen mode which was active upon entering L2 F2, Shift-F2 - background, foreground text colors F3, Shift-F3 - background, foreground border colors F4, Shift-F4 - background, foreground hilite colors (found text) F5, Shift-F5 - background, foreground help colors Note: There are 16 available foreground AND background colors, assuming the hardware supports it. If any of the configurable items are changed, the changes WILL BE LOST if the configuration is not saved. To save L2's configuration, press the <F10> key. L2 maintains its configuration information in the L2.EXE file (this is done to make loading L2 as fast as possible). Since OS/2 keeps the .EXE file open in DENYWRITE mode while L2.EXE is running, L2 cannot save its configuration to itself; therefore L2 saves its configuration in a file called L2CLONE.EXE. This file can then be renamed to L2.EXE after exiting L2 (to use the RENAME command, L2.EXE must be deleted or renamed first). One advantage of this approach is that you can create multiple copies of L2 for viewing different file types, such as L2C.EXE for C files; L2ASM.EXE for assembler files; etc. The configuration for each version could be appropriate to that file type. L2 searches first the current directory, then the directories in the PATH, then the command line for the location of L2.EXE. It then updates that file with the current L2 configuration into L2CLONE.EXE, in the same directory as the L2.EXE file. If you have problems cloning L2, try running it in the directory where the L2.EXE file is or explicitly state the path of the L2.EXE file on the command line. Registering L2 -------------- L2 was developed to support the author's responsibility of evaluating and documenting a system with 400+ modules for which the source code was acquired from a third-party company. It is distributed as shareware with the confidence that it can help others as well. Your comments, suggestions, and constructive criticisms are welcome. Please enclose them, along with the $25.00 registration fee, addressed to: SANSoft Development A. Donnie Hale, Jr. 4971 Pegasus Ct. Hilliard, OH 43026 Voice-mail: (614) 898-2675 CompuServe: 74260,1022 Contact SANSoft Development for site licenses or volume purchases of L2. Thank you in advance for your support. Distributing L2 --------------- SANSoft Development retains the sole right to sell L2; however, it may be distributed, provided: A. It is only distributed in its unmodified, archived form (L2*.ZIP) B. No attempt is made to profit from the distribution of L2 (a duplication fee not to exceed $5.00 may be charge by recognized users' groups) Warranty/Disclaimer ------------------- SANSoft Development makes no representations or warranties as to the merchantibility or fitness of this product to a particular purpose. There is no other warranty, expressed or implied. SANSoft Development will not be liable for any special, incidental, consequential, indirect or similar damages due to loss of data or any other reason, even if SANSoft or an agent of SANSoft has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event shall SANSoft Development's liability for any damages ever exceed the price paid for the license to use the software, regardless of the form of the claim. The person using the software bears all risk as to the quality and performance of the software. Use of this package constitutes agreement on the part of the user to this disclaimer. ============================ E N D O F F I L E =============================