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1992-08-15
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History of ArcDoctor
--------------------
7-23-92 v0.90a
===============
Project begins! Started by looking at all like programs I could get my
hands on... Wrote ARCDOC.CFG to have all of the features of every archive
file processing utility I could find - then added a few more.
7-26-92 v0.91a
===============
Alpha Testing begins at:
Flamingo BBS - Melbourne, Fla
Trojan Express BBS - West Palm Beach, Fla.
1) fixed lock-ups when blank lines where encountered in ARCDOC.CFG -
will now properly processes ARCDOC.CFG if a blank line is encountered.
2) Will now halt with a DOS ERRORLEVEL of 1 if ARCDOC.CFG is not found and
processed.
3) Will now halt with a DOS ERRORLEVEL of 2 if COMPRESS.CFG is not found
and processed.
7-28-92 v0.92a
================
1) Fixed bug trapping error levels left by SCAN.EXE. The old routine
used a buggy TP procedure call that failed to correctly intercept
the error levels SCAN.EXE exited with - thus rendering the scanning
features of ArcDoctor useless. The replacement coding took a couple
hours, and then several hours of thorough testing to be sure the new
procedure was flawless.
2) Made extensive modifications to VSETARCD.EXE - now traps most fatal
errors and reports the exact problem to the screen. Should prove
useful for others to figure out why they can't get this thing to work.
3) Now traps the "runtime error 3" when an invalid path\filename is given
for the AddZipCmt file name and reports this error to both the screen
and to ARCDOC.LOG. There might have been a jumble of path declarations
under certain setups - this code has also been cleaned up. Hopefully
this will fix the bug that caused ArcDoctor to crash when updating
archives.
4) ****** NEW ARCDOC.CFG FILE !!!! *******
7-30-92 v0.93ß
================
1) Added "Recursive Archive" scanning - ArcDoctor will now open and
perform duplicate processing on all recursive archives. Only one
level deep at this time - will require a major re-write of most
procedures for unlimited recursive processing.
2) Enhanced the error handling abilities of ArcDoctor. Poor Juan <Grin>
He just doesn't seem to be able to get over those "Runtime Errors"
that I can't seem to recreate - works like a champ here, oh well.
3) Out of Alpha testing, in a restricted Beta release. Posted in 374_Sysop
echo - Requesting beta testers for a variety of BBS systems.
8-2-92 v0.94ß
==============
1) Okay Juan... Here you go... I *DARE YOU* <Grin>, crash this one!
Added error trapping to the last few un-trapped routines. Enhanced
error trapping reports - most errors are now recorded in ARCDOC.LOG
2) Polished up the recursive processing. Still needs a little work to
be at a point that I'm satisfied with it. Fixed bug that would
re-pack a parent archive if it added zip comments to a child archive.
This "Fix" is really a change - I originally wrote the recursive
routines to do just that, but then I realized that in doing so,
ArcDoctor was wiping out Auto-Verify markers on the parent archive.
Okay guys... Give her hell! Let's make ArcDoctor a "Must Have" for every
BBS system in the world!
8-5-92 v0.95
=============
ßeta test sites sorted by last name:
Operator BBS System Fido Location
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Beiger *TAG Starfire's Universe 374/5 Merritt Isl. Fla.
Greg Belanger !SLBBS Late-Night 134/48 Calgary, Alta, Can.
Genie Bohn !SLBBS Flamingo 374/46 Melbourne, Fla.
Bill Booth *PCB14.5 Paradise Theater N/A Cocoa, Fla.
John Carrol *RA Treasure Coast 374/569 Vero Beach, Fla.
William Herrington !RA SaddleBag 374/38 Satellite Bch, Fla.
Tom McKeever ?WC SpaceCon 374/22 Audubon, Fla.
John Nash ?TAG The Abyss 374/10 Palm Bay, Fla.
Juan Perez !SLBBS Trojan Express 3609/5 West Palm Bch, Fla.
Alex Rose *QBBS Starship Enterprise 374/6 Titusville, Fla.
Jerry Russell !TBBS Tech-Talk 374/1 Titusville, Fla.
* - Indicates new beta testers this release.
! - Indicates bugs/suggestions/overview reported.
? - Indicates "Hmmm.... Did you get it?"
1) This was a major re-write of a good number of routines. The previous
versions worked fine on the three systems here: 286/16, 386DX/25 and
a 486DX/33. This was not the case abroad. I have re-writen almost
every major routine that executes external external programs... In
a utility like ArcDoctor, that's a good chunk of the program. Time
will only tell if it helps those of you that have been having trouble
with the previous releases.
2) Somewhere down the line, ArcDoctor "forgot" how to use any defaults other
than ZIP <Grin>. This bug has been fix - but for how long?
3) I've added the ability to add ARJ Comments to ARJ archives.
***************************** NOTE **********************************
ARCDOC.CFG has had a keyword change! You may use the new ARCDOC.CFG
(included) -or- edit your current ARCDOC.CFG keywords as follows:
AddZipCmt has been changed to AddArcCmt (no syntax changes).
StripZipCmt has been changed to StripArcCmt.
**********************************************************************
3a) I noticed a syntax error in the ARCDOC.CFG. The copy I am shipping
with this release fixes that error - I missed a comma between PKZIP.EXE
and PKUNZIP.EXE on the StripFilesInArc command-line.
4) To simplify my life, I've also developed a "Key File" system for
ArcDoctor. I was custom compiling a copy for each of you - Geez, what
a pain! You should have received a zip file with the name ADxxxxxx.ZIP
where the six "x's" are the first six letters of your last name. If
you did not receive this file, PLEASE contact me so you may try the new
versions out. From here on out, while in beta testing, I'll keep the
latest version of ArcDoctor on-line Freqable by the magic name: ARCDOC
This magic name and all files related to ArcDoctor are to be keept
confidential until such time that I release any of them.
5) VSETARCD.EXE has been modified, The old version will not be compatable
with the new ARCDOC.CFG. A new field has also been added: directly
below the display of your default archive information, you will see
a list of the archive engine names declared in your COMPRESS.CFG.
If an entry is preceded by an asterisk "*", this engine was not found
in your DOS path, and thus may not be used.
Notes:
You have volunteered to beta test ArcDoctor, for that I thank you,
but as a beta tester I *NEED* you to report how well ArcDoctor is
or is not working for you. You may contact me any of the following
ways:
Voice .......... (407) 255-7713,
Flamingo BBS ... (407) 253-0782
FidoNet@USA .... 1:374/46
SnailMail ...... 1061 Ellen Ct.
Melbourne, Fla, 32935
Thank you -
Juan Perez, Jerry Russell, Greg Belanger, and William Herrington
for your bug reports and suggestions.
8-6 to 8-7-92
=============
v0.95 seems to be working bug free for the most part on most systems!
No major bugs reported, Ahh... It's about time!
There are a few problems that need to be addressed - the logging procedures
need to be revamped when an archiver exits with an errorlevel other than "0",
additionally the following bugs where reported:
* Jerry Russell reported: If an archive that was being processed didn't
have an extension, the archive utilities couldn't open it up. He had
several false PAK archive files located - I need to add additional code
for PAK file searches to eliminate this problem. He also requested
that ArcDoctor move or delete files that fail unarchiving, once the
"bug" with PAK files is fixed. I would also like to point out that
it was Jerry who put the finger on why pre v0.95 was having problems
running on several platforms. I don't know whether to thank him, or
kick him <Grin> - it was this "finger" that prompted the 18-20 hours
a day coding/debugging loop that lasted for the 3 days between v0.94
and v0.95.
* Greg Belanger reported: An error message "can't remove C:\" when ArcDoctor
was finishing it's run. I can assure you ArcDoctor is not trying to
remove your C: drive/directory. Seems to be a syntax error in my cleanup
procedures. Greg suggested SFX file support. I should also credit him
with bringing to my attention that ARJ also supports an archive comment,
and that I should implement this feature in ArcDoctor - done in v0.95.
* Juan Perez reported: ArcDoctor halts with a runtime error if an invalid
path is declared in ARCDOC.CFG for the work directory path. Juan also
reported that at the end of it's run, ArcDoctor is halting with a
"runtime error 003 @ 0000:460B" I haven't checked it yet, but I'm sure
the runtime error is related to the bug that Greg reported. 003
signifies "path not found". Poor Juan... he was my original Alpha
tester - so he's been putting up with these problems for a long time now.
I'd like to express a special thanks to him for so many good bug
reports/suggestions and for being so patient with so many supposedly
"fixed" versions in such a short time <Grin>.
Took a couple days off from coding...
Began research to add support for the following file types:
* Teledisk files.
* JPG <--> GIF conversions.
* SFX files.
Compiled a list of documented errorlevel codes for PKZIP, PKXARC, ARJ, PAK
and LHA. I plan on implementing this information into the error reporting
routines of ArcDoctor via an external ASCII data file that may be appended
per archive machine - thus when a new archiver is added to COMPRESS.CFG,
ERRORLEV.DEF (or whatever) may also be updated. This should greatly enhance
BadFile logging and handling.
8-8-92 v0.96
=============
1) ArcDoctor passed a files true file name.ext to the archive engine.
In most cases this worked fine, but Jerry Russell pointed out to
me that sometimes users fail to include the extension when using
manual protocols such as Xmodem or Ymodem. This, in it self, was
not a problem for ArcDoctor, since ArcDoctor verifies an archives
format via signature bytes contained inside the file. The problem
occurred when the unarchiving utility tried to open it up... By
default most archive utility expect their default extension if
none is give. In the above cases ArcDoctor wasn't passing an
extension because the file to be opened didn't have on, thus the
archive engine was trying to open <filename+archive extension> which
didn't exist <Grin>. This was fixed with a couple of simple lines
of code that rename the file prior to unarchiving if the extension
is missing. Geez... long explanation for a simple problem <Grin>.
2) Moved about a dozen procedures/functions and 300 lines of code out of
the main body of the program and put them into a self-contained unit.
This unit now contains all of the procedure and functions for CRT,
logging, and SysopMail (when implemented) output. Reasons:
* The main body was just growing to large - it was getting hard to
find specific regions to work on.
* The heap was reaching it's limit (again) - room is going to be needed
for for the additional features I hope to implement in the next release.
3) Wrote ADFLAVOR.EXE... This utility was written to update/process any
file list of files that have been converted to a default archive format
by ArcDoctor. I have tested it on both FILES.BBS ASCII file lists and
on binary data tree file lists such as those used by Searchlight and
WildCat!. ADFLAVOR reads your ARCDOC.CFG, then searches and replaces
all declared file extension (in COMPRESS.CFG) with your chosen default.
It will process either of the following conventions of filename
displayes:
FILE.EXT
FILE EXT
Note: This program will not convert SFX names, and if it finds the
chosen filename format (see above examples) in a file discription,
it may also change the discription. In most cases, this should be
desired. When a file discription is for a utility that works with
a non-default archive type, you may have to manualy edit the discr-
iption after ADFLAVOR has done it's thing. Original files are backed
up, keeping the original filename with an ".OLD" extension. It
would have been ALOT easyier to to just search and replace extensions,
but such cases would be much more prone to creating errors in file
discriptions. I've run ADFLAVOR on several hundred file discriptions
here on Flamingo BBS and have found no errors in discriptions that
needed editing - not a bad track record <Grin>.
8-9-92 v0.96
=============
1) Designed and implemented ERRORLEV.DEF. I didn't like the idea of
treating all archive that failed unpacking or packing as BadFiles,
especialy when the error might be caused by lack of memory or no
more room on the work directories disk. If the BadFilesDir was going
to be used by everyone, this really wouldn't be that big of a deal.
ERRORLEV.DEF is a simple ASCII text file that lets you declare all
errorlevels that may be reported by your archive engines, specifiy
action to take on a per-errorlevel bases, and define a string for
each errorlevel of each archive engine to be reported to the CRT,
ARCDOC.LOG and SysopMail (when I get around to implementing).
2) Made another attempt to fix the ellusive "runtime error 003" bug
that crops up on some systems at the end of runtime - I think the
error is derived when ArcDoctor fails to remove all files from the
work directory, thus can not remove the work directory at the end
of runtime. This error has been reported by 3 of the systems beta
testing ArcDoctor - Trojan Express, Treasure Coast, and Paradise
Theater.
I feel v0.95 has proven to be stable enough (pending any late major bug
reports) as to where I feel comfortable enough to make v0.96 a general
beta release, instead of a restricted beta release.
I have dissabled the need for a key with this version. ArcDoctor will
now run in "unregistered mode" without a key.
The following features will only work if ARCDOC.KEY is present in
the same directory as ARCDOC.CFG:
* Convert to default archive format.
* Recursive archive processing.
* StripTdComs.
Additional features that will be coded in by version 1.0:
* SysopMail.
* Check for TeleDisk files.
* GIF <--> JPG conversions.
* SFX support.
I am projecting 15 Sept. 1992 for the release of v1.0 with all of the above
feature fully implemented. I am going to try and have all of the above
features coded into a restricted beta release buy 1 Sept. 1992. This has
been a fast-paced project, so it may be done much sooner than that.
8-15-92 v0.96
==============
Have spent the past 4 days putting together the documentation for the first
general release of ArcDoctor - 20 plus pages, the documentation is larger
than the program. Oh well... I just hope it is sufficiant for the general
public to be able to make use of ArcDoctor.
Still no word from either of my TAG beta test sites, nor any word from
my WildCat! test site.
Made extensive tests on ArcDoctor, found a few minor bugs. Cleaned up the
code some. Released the first general release to the public today.