home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
BBS Toolkit
/
BBS Toolkit.iso
/
qbbs
/
howmch07.zip
/
HOWMUCH.DOC
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1989-03-04
|
5KB
|
110 lines
┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ HOWMUCH V0.7 │
│ │
│ A FrontDoor* Mail cost info utility │
│ │
│ by Mike Janke 1:135/4 │
│ │
└──────────────────────────────────────────┘
NOTE: This program is still in its development stages and should be
considered a beta version. I use it daily and it appears to
be functioning as desired, but please exercise safe computing
and always have a backup.
What it is -
HOWMUCH is a little program I wrote so I could keep track of how much
money I've spent on net/echomail. If you use PcPursuit exclusively, or
you don't use cost values in your nodelist that relate to actual cost,
this program will be of little use to you.
HOWMUCH uses FrontDoor's OUTBOUND.HIS file to obtain the cost info, so
you must have this option enabled to use HOWMUCH. It doesn't matter how
many days of history you keep because HOWMUCH places a marker record in
outbound.his and it always knows where it left off.
Guarantee -
None. I run it daily in my morning batch file with no problems, but I
cannot accept any responsibility for any problems that may occur after
using HOWMUCH. If you have a problem with this, please delete all files
related to HOWMUCH and never use it.
Cost -
None. Howmuch is 100% free. In addition, there are no registration
requirements of any kind, though an occasional attaboy wouldn't be
refused :-)
Usage -
There are two modes for HOWMUCH. First is the batch mode. This
requires you to use a command line switch of "-b" or "/b". Actually,
I'm pretty easy going. You can use ANYTHING you like as the switch
to signify batch mode. Even "Howmuch Batch" would be just fine. This
mode is used to compile the cost info from outbound.his and add that
info to Howmuch.his. Howmuch.his is created on the first run and
appended from there on.
Howmuch.his has the exact same file format as outbound.his, but each
system is only added to Howmuch.his one time and any new mail costs are
added to that system's total. Also, no file transfer data is compiled,
only mail cost.
The second mode of Howmuch is the display mode. This displays the data
in Howmuch.his to the screen. There are no fancy windows or colors,
just net/node info, system name and cumulative cost for that system.
The output is in column format for easy reading and is redirectable so
the output can be sent to a file or printer.
So, "HOWMUCH -b" (don't use the quote marks of course) will run HOWMUCH
in it's compile data mode. Howmuch opens outbound.his, looks for a
marker record, and if found, compiles data from that point on. If no
marker is found, it assumes a new outbound.his and compiles data from
the starting record. Zero cost records are ignored. You'd probably
want to use this mode in your morning cleanup batch file.
Running "HOWMUCH" without any commandline switch tells Howmuch to
display the contents of Howmuch.his to the screen. This mode works great
with Frontdoor's mailer ALT-F# keys. There is a pause built in to
Howmuch, but it's only every 20 lines, so you'll want to enable
FrontDoor's "Pause before returning" option in the ALT-F# key setup if
that's how you run HOWMUCH.
You may also redirect the output to a file or printer using standard
dos redirection i.e. "Howmuch > filename" or "Howmuch > prn". If
redirection is detected by Howmuch, the "Press any key to continue" is
disabled and the data is output without interruption.
Possible problem areas -
Howmuch reads FrontDoor's outbound.his into an array for quick
comparisons and compilation of data. Due to Turbo Pascal's 64k
limitation for a single data item, your first run of Howmuch will
require your outbound.his to be less than 64k (roughly 640 entries
in outbound.his). This doesn't seem to present any real problems.
Does ANYONE keep a history for that long?
If Outbound.his is 63k on your first run and 80k on the second run, all
will be fine. Howmuch will only have to read in 17k next time due to
the 'marker' inserted during the previous run.
enjoy.
Mike Janke
*FRONTDOOR Copyright 1988, 1989 Scandinavian PC Systems and InterZone Software