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1988-01-16
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5KB
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125 lines
Eric Balkan
Packet Press
14704 Seneca Castle Ct.
Gaithersburg, MD 20878
Operating instructions for MOVIES
MOVIES is a utility program specifically designed for
doing simple name searches on The Movie Database. Here are
some examples of its use:
A>movies
Search request #1 (e.g. Winger and Nolte) (Null line to stop):
Lou Gossett Jr
- lists all movies with Lou Gossett, Jr. in the cast
Search request #2 (Null line to stop):
Gossett
- same as above
Search request #3 (Null line to stop):
Winger and Nolte
- finds the movie starring (Debra) Winger and (Nick) Nolte
Search request #4 (Null line to stop):
MacLaine or McLaine
- useful when not sure of spelling; the same effect could be
obtained by using MacLaine in one search set and McLaine
in the next.
Search request #5 (e.g. Winger and Nolte) (Null line to stop):
Pink Panther
- finds all movies with Pink Panther in the title
Search request #6 (e.g. Winger and Nolte) (Null line to stop):
(Aust.)
- finds all Australian movies
Search request #7
- an ENTER by itself ends the input
Note that each search request (i.e. each line of search criteria) is
independent. Each movie entry that matches a particular search will be
saved in memory. After the entire database has been examined, you will
have the opportunity to separately review all of the movies that have
matched each search.
Note also that the program is not case-sensitive; it treats upper and
lower case as the same.
Up to 15 searches may be requested.
Please note that this program is quite simple-minded. If the second
term in a search statement is AND or OR, then the first and third terms
are used as search arguments. If AND/OR is not found, then
the entire string is used as a search argument. In other words:
ILLEGAL: Debra Winger and Nick Nolte
LEGAL: Keaton and Allen
to find all Diane Keaton and Woody Allen movies.
(Also finds all Diane Keaton and Karen Allen movies.
There is no "wild card" capability.
ILLEGAL: D:xxLester
LEGAL: D:Richard Lester
or
Richard Lester
or
Lester
(though this last one will probably show more movies than
you'd intended)
Installation Instructions
Copy all files into a subdirectory on your hard disk or a 3 1/2 "floppy".
If you have only 2-5 1/4" disks, make backup copies of the
distribution disks. (Before running MOVIES each time, you'll need to key in:
SET DIRS=A:;B:
at the DOS prompt.
That's all you need do to install The Movie Database.
For those interested, the DOS SET command with a DIRS parameter tells
MOVIES what drives or directories to search. For instance:
C> set DIRS=C:\dir1;c:\dir2;.;d:\
Each directory name is separated by a semi-colon (;). A period means
to search the current directory, whatever that happens to be. The word
DIRS is used only by SFIND; otherwise the syntax is mostly similar to that
of the DOS PATH command. (The SET command allows an easy way for users to
tell programs about things that don't change very often.) If you want to
get rid of directories that have been previously specified, just key in:
set DIRS=
With no directories specified, SFIND will only search one directory --
the one implied or specified with the filename.
Principles of Operation
The program starts with the first entry in the current disk directory
(unless DIRS has been set). For each filename that consists of
two-letters, the file is opened and searched. As each movie record is
processed, the information for each movie is built into a single field for
search purposes. Matches are then done on character strings within this
entire field. When a match is found, the entire entry for the movie is
displayed on the screen. As each file is searched, the name of the file
will also be displayed. There is a limit of 200 hits for any one search
request and about 500 hits for all search requests. A typical search will
take about 2 minutes on an XT.
Note: This program will operate with any free-form text files whose records
are separated by two dots (..), with no record larger than 1000 bytes, whose
filenames consist of 2 letters, and where no file is larger than 24K bytes.
If you need something more flexible or something customized to your needs, let
me know -- I can probably whip up something.