CD Shareware Magazine 1997 January

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Text File | 1996-07-19 | 13.5 KB | 326 lines

BFIND.DOC 1 Revised: 07-19-96 The BFIND.EXE program adds Boolean logic to DOS's FIND command. In most ways, it's identical to the FIND command except: * Adds AND, OR, NOT, and XOR options to searches (finding all lines with "Apples" or "Bananas", for example). * Allows you to specify the starting column of the desired string. * Adds a pause (/P) option to have the output pause every 24 lines. * Avoids need to include the search string in quotation marks so you can use the program more easily in batch commands. * The input file specification can include standard DOS wildcards or an external file (@listfile) containing the files to be processed, e.g: BFIND /I "SOUND" *.DOC > TEMP.X * Allows you to skip the by-file heading information ("----- filename"). * Can avoid showing file name header if no hits in the file (/-EMPTY option). * Handles DOS text files (lines end with CR/LF), Mac text files (lines end with CR), or Unix text files (lines end with LF). * Should be able to handle input files with line lengths of 5000 characters or more. * Allows you to remove non-text characters from the output or even specify your own character-translation file for them. The only FIND feature that BFIND does *not* support is the ability to specify multilple single input files without using wildcards ("FIND ... BRUCE.TXT BRUCE.DOC" works--"BFIND ... BRUCE.TXT BRUCE.DOC" does not). In addition, you cannot do piping into BFIND (e.g. DIR | BFIND ...). The DOS FIND command allows you to find lines in a text file which contain a given string. You can also have the program tell you how many lines met the search criteria without actually viewing them which is an ideal way to find out how many times a given string appears in your file. You can even use FIND to tell you how many total lines are in a given file just by requesting a string that you know will never appear in your file like "#X$S$" and using the /C (count) parameter. BFIND adds to these capabilities. It gives you the power of AND, OR, NOT, and XOR, allowing you to find any line, for example, that contains both "Apples" and "Oranges" or to present any lines that contain either "Bananas" and "Pears". In addition, you can do column-specific searching, finding only those lines, say, that contain "PRINT" beginning in column 10. BFIND allows you to specify wildcards for the input file. You can also put the list of file names to process in a text file and tell BFIND to process the files listed therein. Specifying parameters: Parameters for this program can be set in the following ways. The last setting encountered always wins: - Read from an *.INI file (see BRUCEINI.DOC file), - Through the use of an environmental variable (SET BFIND=whatever), or - From the command line (see "Syntax" below) BFIND.DOC 2 Revised: 07-19-96 Syntax: BFIND [ /V | /-V ] [ /C | /-C ] [ /N | /-N ] [ /I | /-I ] [ /P | /-P ] [ /-HEADER ] [ /-EMPTY ] [ /FILTER | /FILTER=filename ] [ /LINES { line1-line2 | line1 linect } ... ] [ /MONO ] [ /Iinitfile | /INULL ] [ /? ] [ /?&H ] { search } { filespec | @listfile } [ >filename ] where: "/V" says to find those items that do NOT match the specification. Initially defaults to "/-V". "/-V" says to find those items that DO match the specification. This is initially the default. "/C" says to show the count of the items found (no individual lines). Initially defaults to "/-C". One use for the "/C" parameter is to count the number of lines in a file; search for all lines that do *not* (/V) contain a totally improbable string and then tally them. E.g. BFIND /V /C "&^&^&#" MYFILE.TXT "/-C" says to skip counting the items. This is initially the default. "/N" says to number the output lines. Initially defaults to "/-N". "/-N" says to skip numbering the output lines. This is initially the default. "/I" says to make it a case-insensitive search. So a search for "Apple" will find "APPLE", "apple", ApPle", etc. "/-I" is the opposite of /I and is typically the default. A search for "Apple" will not find "APPLE". "/P" says to have the display pause every 24 lines. Initially defaults to "/-P". "/-P" says to not bother pausing the output display. This is initially the default. "/-HEADER" says to skip the normal -----infile output line that appears before the results of the output. "/HEADER" says to include the headers. This is initially the default. The header lines look like this: --------- C:\VBDOS\BFIND.BAS "/EMPTY" says that the -----infile header information is to be shown even if the file doesn't have any hits in it. This is initially the default. "/-EMPTY" says to only show the -----infile header information if the file has hits. Initially defaults to "/EMPTY". BFIND.DOC 3 Revised: 07-19-96 "/FILTER" says to remove all nonprintable characters from the output. Initially defaults to "/-FILTER". "/-FILTER" says to not bother removing the nonprintable characters from the output. This is initially the default. "/FILTER=filename" specifies that a filter is to be applied and all non-same character replacements are in the file "filename". This feature is of very limited usefulness in the BFIND program unless you're reading native word processing files. If this excites you for some reason, get the ZIP READymm.ZIP and read the documentation for the READY program. The feature works identically in both programs. "/LINES line1-line2" says to restrict the search to lines between line numbers line1 and line2 inclusive. You can have multiple line requests in any order such as "/LINES 1-10 90-100 30-50". The routine skips all lines after the largest line number is encountered. Defaults to "/LINES 1-9999999". "/LINES line1 linect" says to restrict the search to lines beginning with line1 and continuing for a total of linect lines. So "/LINES 10 20" is actually the same as "/LINES 10-29". "/MONO" (or "/-COLOR") does not try to override screen colors. Initially defaults to "/COLOR". "/COLOR" (or "/-MONO") allows screen colors to be overridden. This is initially the default. "/Iinitfile" says to read an initialization file with the file name "initfile". The file specification *must* contain a period. Initfiles are described in the BRUCEINI.DOC file. Initially defaults to "/IBFIND.INI". "/INULL" says to skip loading the initialization file. "/?" or "/HELP" or "HELP" shows you the syntax for the command. "/?&H" gives you a hexadecimal and decimal conversion table. "search" is described below. "filespec" tells the routine which file or files are to be processed. The specification can include path and wildcards if desired. One thing I find useful with wildcards is that is allows me to create an output that concatenates all of the input files together with the typical headers (/HEADER) that separate each portion. This requires searching for all lines in a file so you need to use the /V option and look for an improbable string. For example, to concatenate all *.TXT files together as a new file called TEMP.NEW and have the little header between each, say this: BFIND /V "&#$#" *.TXT > TEMP.NEW "@listfile" allows you to have a variety of file specifications saved in a text file named "listfile". Each line in the file should consist of one file specification, each of which can include a path and wildcards if desired. Blank lines and lines beginning with semi-colons, colons, or quotes are ignored. An example using this is provided at the end of this documentation. BFIND.DOC 4 Revised: 07-19-96 ">filename" redirects the output to a text file. This automatically invokes the /-P option. This is useful for saving the found lines into another file. For example: BFIND "Bruce" TEMP.TXT > TEMP2.TXT For search, the syntax is: [ ( ]... search_item [ boolean [ ( ]... search_item [ ) ]...] [ ) ]... where: ( and ) are used to group items search_item is shown below boolean is AND, OR, or XOR (NOT is included with search_item) for search_item, the syntax is: [ NOT ] "string" [ column ] where: NOT is obvious string the string to search; the quotation marks are typically not required unless the string contains a space or a reserved word column is the column in which the string must be found. So, let's cover some examples: BFIND "Bugs Bunny" OR "Elmer Fudd" TEST.TXT Finds any lines in the file TEST.TXT containing either "Bugs Bunny" or "Elmer Fudd" in them. BFIND (Apples or Oranges) AND NOT Pears TEST2.TXT Finds any lines in the file TEST2.TXT which contain the words "Apples" or "Oranges" in them and ignores any lines containing "Pears". Note that the quotes around the search words are not required unless the words include spaces or unless they could be confused with some other keywords. "BFIND OR OR AND TEST3.TXT" might cause the program to get confused since "OR" and "AND", which you want to look for, are also keywords. BFIND /C "Bugs Bunny" AND Martians TEST.TXT Gives you a total for the number of lines containing both "Bugs Bunny" and "Martians". BFIND.DOC 5 Revised: 07-19-96 The search string can include any text characters. It can also contain ASCII codes, created either using the Alt key in combination with the numeric keypad (e.g. Alt-228 to get a Sigma character) or else by embedding a hexadecimal code (in the form &Hxx) or a decimal code (in the form \nnn) in the text. These codes are described in the BRUCEHEX.DOC file. For example, to find the smiley face character in a file called TEST.TXT, either of the following work: BFIND "" TEST.TXT BFIND \001 TEST.TXT If you search for more than one word without using a Boolean operator, BFIND presumes you wanted the words searched with an "AND" Boolean operator. So this: BFIND Print Form *.TXT is the same thing as saying: BFIND Print AND Form *.TXT If you wanted to search for the *phrase* "Print Form", you'd have to say: BFIND "Print Form" *.TXT You can press the Esc key to abort the search early. BFIND, unlike FIND, typically doesn't require the search string to be in quotes. As a result, you can create a text file (presume it's called C:\BAT\PHONE.TXT) containing phone numbers or something and then create a batch file (like PHONE.BAT) that looks like this: BFIND %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 C:\BAT\PHONE.TXT When you want to find a phone number, you just say "PHONE name". This is a little more natural that using FIND which would require that you enclose the name in quotes. You can still use the Boolean operators in BFIND; the batch file above would allow up to five parameters. If you have multiple phone books, use the @listfile option in the batch file. For example, I have four phone files I search; a personal one (PHONES.TXT), a list of e-mail addresses (PHONMAIL.TXT), a list of work-related phone numbers that are distributed to the office (EBBPHONE.TXT), and an office list (OBAPHONE.TXT). My @listfile is called C:\MINE\PHONE.LST and contains these lines: c:\mine\phones.txt c:\mine\phonmail.txt c:\mine\ebbphone.txt c:\mine\obaphone.txt My PHONE.BAT file contains this line: BFIND /I /P /-EMPTY %1 %2 %3 %4 @C:\MINE\PHONE.LST BFIND.DOC 6 Revised: 07-19-96 Return codes: BFIND returns the following ERRORLEVEL codes: 0 = no problems, string found 1 = no problems, string not found 250 = operation aborted by pressing Escape 255 = syntax problems, file not found, or /? requested Author: This program was written by Bruce Guthrie of Wayne Software. It is free for use and redistribution provided relevant documentation is kept with the program, no changes are made to the program or documentation, and it is not bundled with commercial programs or charged for separately. People who need to bundle it in for-sale packages must pay a $50 registration fee to "Wayne Software" at the following address. Additional information about this and other Wayne Software programs can be found in the file BRUCEymm.DOC which should be included in the original ZIP file. ("ymm" is replaced by the last digit of the year and the two digit month of the release. BRUCE512.DOC came out in December 1995. This same naming convention is used in naming the ZIP file that this program was included in.) Comments and suggestions can also be sent to: Bruce Guthrie Wayne Software 113 Sheffield St. Silver Spring, MD 20910 fax: (301) 588-8986 e-mail: bguthrie@nmaa.org http://hjs.geol.uib.no/guthrie/ See BRUCEymm.DOC file for revision history. Please provide an Internet e-mail address on all correspondence.