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DUPLICATE FILE LOCATOR Version 3.40 Introduction to DFL ......................................3 DFL Overview .............................................3 System Requirements ......................................4 Technical Support ........................................4 Registration Information .................................5 Software License .........................................5 Command Line Options .....................................6 Environment Variables ....................................7 The Interactive Interface ................................8 Help System ..............................................9 Duplicate List Window (Non-menu mode) ....................9 Running DFL ..............................................10 Duplicate File Search Modes ..............................10 DFL Online Functions .....................................12 Global Functions .........................................14 Alt-H Help Menu ..........................................14 Alt-S Setup Menu .........................................14 Alt-R Run Menu ...........................................14 Alt-F File Menu ..........................................15 Alt-A Analyze menu .......................................15 Security Build & Report ..................................15 Basic On-line Commands ...................................16 DFL Archive Subsystem ....................................17 Defining an Archive ......................................17 Basic Parameters .........................................17 Archive Programs .........................................18 Lister Program & Parameters ..............................19 Deleter Program & Parameters .............................19 Extractor Program & Parameters ...........................20 Compressor Program & Parameters ..........................20 The Test Run .............................................21 Archive Lister Output ....................................21 DFL File Viewing System ..................................22 Screen Layout ............................................22 Users' Questions and Answers .............................23 DFL Temporary Files & Directories ........................27 DOS Stack Overflow .......................................28 Error Messages ...........................................28 Exit Errors ..............................................34 Page 2 In this section, a brief introduction to the capabilities of DFL is provided. Complete information on all of these topics is provided in subsequent sections. This manual sometimes mentions other software programs or products. In all such cases, any trademarked material is the property of the rightful owners. DFL Overview Duplicate File Locator is a complete software system used to locate, view, compare and delete duplicate files on your computer system. No matter where the files reside: in various subdirectories, on network drives, or even in archive files of various formats, DFL will find them for you, and allow you to view, delete or retain them as you see fit. After DFL has assembled a list of all of the files to be considered, DFL will search for duplicates in one of two ways. We call these NAME mode and ALIAS mode. In NAME mode, DFL searches its file list for files which have the same name; in ALIAS mode, DFL looks for files which have the same data. For example, in NAME mode, DFL could tell you that one of your files "SOURCE.C" has been copied into any number of places. In alias mode, DFL will tell you that "SOURCE.C" and "SOURCE.BAK" have exactly the same contents. DFL version 2.61 could build a list of approximately 8,000 files over any number of drives. Beginning with DFL version 3.00, we have introduced a virtual memory system to help us build large lists of files. We can now build a list limited only by the free disk space you have to hold our data tables. DFL will need approximately 1 megabyte of disk space for every 25,000 files. DFL provides a number of options particularly useful in NAME mode. For example, different versions of files sometimes have the version number as part of the file name. For example, DFL has been released in the past as "DFL110", "DFL130", "DFL150" and "DFL261". By using the 3 character masking option, DFL will locate all of these as NAME mode duplicates. In this way, you can see which is the most recent version resident on your system or network. We allow you to set any number of characters as the width to match. In NAME mode, files with the same or similar names are located, but the contents may be different. DFL gives you the option of comparing any two files to see if the contents are the same. In ALIAS mode, this comparison is already done for you as part of the search process. Many of us, especially BBS sysops, use file archive programs to get more files on our disks. DFL will use your archive programs to search for, view or delete files stored inside your archive files. We have tested DFL with ZIP, PAK, ZOO, LZH and ARC archive programs successfully. While we haven't tested DFL with all versions of these programs, or any other programs, we know of no reason why DFL should not work. If you have any problems in this area, or any other, please let us know so we can take appropriate steps. DFL will even find duplicates which reside in different archive formats. Page 3 After DFL has searched the file list, any duplicate files are displayed in the "duplicate window", with the drive and path along which each file was found, the file length, and the file date and time. You may scroll through the duplicate window, compare pairs of files, view individual files, and tag files for deletion. In addition, you may write the contents of the duplicate window to an ASCII file so you can review the list off-line. DFL will allow you to compare files using either a binary, byte-by- byte comparison, or by using your ASCII file comparison program FC.EXE. The ASCII comparison is particularly helpful in checking the differences between to versions of the "same" file. DFL offers COMPLETE ARCHIVE SUPPORT. This means that files which are compressed and stored in archives can be handled exactly like normal files. They can be viewed, deleted or compared to other files regardless of the type of archive(s) in which they reside. Their host archives will be treated as directories. Also, though implemented only as a setup/diagnostic feature, DFL has the ability to add files to archives using the corresponding archive's compression formats. DFL includes a comprehensive 'archive definition' subsystem which will allow you to customize it to interface with up to 10 different archive compression/extraction systems. DFL is precustomized for several popular archive systems. The only difference between the shareware version and the registered version is that the shareware version has opening and closing registration reminder screens. System Requirements DFL.EXE will run on any PC XT/AT or compatible machine, using any 80x86 processor chip, monochrome or color display, under MSDOS 3.0+ in about 400k of memory. Additional memory is needed to interface with external archive systems. For some, this is only 90k. Others need 190k. Check the documentation for the specific archive programs you use. DFL runs in about 540k of memory (or less) with the ZIP, PAK, ZOO, LZH and ARC archive programs. Technical Support As a DFL user, you may reach us in the following ways: Write: W. S. Ataras Engineering 40 Laughton Street Upper Marlboro, Md. 20772 Voice mail: 202-310-2552 BBS: Toad Hall 415-595-2427 for the current version. Baudville 416-283-6059 Canada Leave message to BILL ATARAS. Page 4 Look for DFL*.*. The latest version will be a free download. CompuServe: William Ataras 70322,1514 IBMSYS forum. Lib 6. SCAN DFL*.* lib:all Registration Information This is the REGISTERED version of DFL. You will automatically receive any new releases issued to correct bugs identified in this version at no additional charge. In addition, you may register for future versions at reduced rates in order to have the most up-to-date features of DFL economically. DFL REGISTERED USERS RECEIVE: 1. The latest version. 2. Any releases issued to correct bugs found in your version. 3. No shareware reminder screens. 4. Phone & modem support. 5. A 30 day money-back satisfaction guarantee. 6. Upgrade & follow-up notifications. We appreciate your registration, and hope that DFL is of continuing value to you in the future. If you discover bugs in DFL, please tell us; if you are satisfied with DFL, please tell your friends and associates, and pass on to them your copy of the SHAREWARE version of DFL included on your distribution disk. Unfortunately, in our society, it is necessary for us to let you know that we can only be responsible for what we do. W. S. Ataras Engineering and its affiliated individuals hereby disclaim all warranties relating to this software, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. We will not be liable for any special, incidental, consequential, indirect or similar damages due to loss of data or any other reason, even if we or an agent of W. S. Ataras Engineering has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event shall our liability for any damages ever exceed the price paid for the license to use 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. Software License The software license agreement is shown below. DFL (tm) Duplicate File Locator Version 3.40 Copyright 1991, W. S. Ataras Engineering All rights reserved. You are free to use DFL on any single computer, provided: - no fee is charged for its use - it is not modified in any way Page 5 You are free to distribute the SHAREWARE version of DFL on your distribution disk provided - no fee is charged for its use, copying or distribution - it is not modified in any way If you want to charge a fee for distributing either the shareware or registered versions of DFL, please contact W.S. Ataras Engineering as described in this documentation. We are more than happy to make DFL accessible to everybody but must give written permission first. Using DFL Command Line Options DFL can be invoked from the DOS command line, or from within a batch file, These command line options allow you to configure and run DFL without any interaction. They are described completely below. The command line has the form: DFL [options], where each option begins with a slash and is followed by a space if there are any subsequent options on the command line. /mono - Use monochrome colors. Default - Autodetected. Tells DFL to use monochrome colors on the screen. This can help if DFL doesn't automatically detect your monochrome adapter or screen. /d= - Drive list. Default - Current. Specifies which disks to scan for duplicates. Non-existent drives are gnored. /w= - Working disk. Default - Current. This option overrides the DFLDISK environment variable described above. /f= - Filename Masks. Default - *.*. You can scan all your program files for duplicates by using '*.EXE' and '*.COM'. Specify up to 10 spearated by commas. /xd= - Exclude dir, no subdirs. Ex: /xd=c:\dos /xs= - Exclude dir and subdirs. Ex: /xs=c:\borlandc /id= - Include dir, no subdirs. Ex: /id=c:\pcb /id=..\test /is= - Include dir and subdirs. Ex: /is=\tmp\tryit /is=..\..\tmp These options can be used more than once on the commandline. /m= - Scan Mode. Default - Name mode. Defines how duplicates are found. Mode Parameter Comment -------------------------------------------------------------- Name /m=name Find equal file names Length /m=length Find equal file lengths Page 6 FastAlias /m=fastalias Find equal file contents by CRC FullAlias /m=fullalias Find equal contents by comparison Dos Path /m=path Find exectuables on the path Name 1-11 /m=n1 ... n11 Find 1st 'n' equal name letters /@= - Command file. This file contains a list of these options. Use one option per line. This is ideal for long lists of include/exclude directories. '/@=' is the only option that is not valid from within a command file. /l(a/w)= - List output file & flag to Append/Write over if it exists. /s= - Save DFL state and exit. Can't use with '/l=(a/w)' option. When these options are used, DFL will scan your system unattended, write the list (or save its state) and return to DOS. Example ------- DFL /mono /d=cd /xd=. /xd=dos /w=e /m=fastalias /f=*.exe,*.com /s=dfl.dat The above options are used to set DFL's startup operating parameters. All of these parameters (except '/w=' - Working disk) can be changed on-line via the functions described below. For details on each of the on-line functions, please examine the corresponding context help as described below. Environment Variables There are two DOS environment variables which can be used as described below. DFLDISK = Working Disk Use "SET DFLDISK=[drive letter]" in your AUTOEXEC.BAT or from the DOS command line to define a working disk for DFL. The working disk is used for virtual memory caching. The '/w=' command- line option described below overrides this. The default is the cur-rent disk. DFL's performance can be increased by caching to a faster device such as a ramdisk. DFL needs about 1 MB of disk space for every 25,000 files. Also, DFL extracts archived files to the working disk for the View and Comparison functions. The working disk should have enough free space to hold any two archived files as well as the virtual memory files. At startup, the root directory of the working disk is searched before the path for the external archive programs (defined under 'Archive Laws') and file compare program (defined under 'FC.EXE Laws'). You can greatly enhance archive processing by insuring that the desired archive programs are in the working disk root directory prior to running DFL. DFLCFG = Save File Directory Page 7 Use "SET DFLCFG=[directory spec] in your AUTOEXEC.BAT or from the DOS command line to define the directory which contains the DFL.SAV file. DFL uses the following priorities in determining this directory: 1. Check the DFLCFG environment variable. 2. Search the current directory for DFL.SAV. 3. Search the path for DFL.SAV. 4. Use the DFL.EXE host directory. DFl.SAV is used to store the Archive Definitions and other miscellaneous data. If it does not already exist in the directory determined above, it will be created and initialized. The basic idea is that once you tuck away DFL.EXE & DFL.SAV somewhere on your path, you won't have to worry about them anymore. The Interactive Interface When DFL initializes, you will see a menu bar at the top of the screen, three status windows below the menu bar and a big window at the bottom of the screen. The status windows are described below. The large window at the bottom is the Duplicate Window. That is where the list of duplicate files will appear. You can interface with DFL in either of two windows. DFL begins in the first window, the pull down menu window. While in a menu, use the Up and Down arrow keys to move the menu cursor bar. You may activate the function under the bar by striking <ENTER>. Context sensitive help can also be obtained by striking <F1>. To jump to another menu, either strike its hot key or use the Left and Right arrow keys to cycle around. All functions and menus can be accessed independently with their corresponding hot keys. The second window is the Duplicate Window. To jump between the Duplicate Window and the menu window, strike the <ESC> key. While in the Duplicate Window, use the Up and Down arrow keys to move the cursor bar through the file list. Your relative position in the list will be indicated by a small horizontal bar on the left border. If the path for a file is too wide to fit in the window, it may be scrolled by using the Left and Right arrow keys. Remember that you can activate any function with its hot key. You need not use the menus. Once you master the hot keys, you'll find it easy to configure DFL, build the list of duplicates, and examine the results. Menu or Non-menu Access DFL has two primary windows: the Menu window and the Duplicate List window. The Menu window is used to enter commands under normal circumstances. It also offers context sensitive help for each menu function before the functions are selected. Page 8 You use the ESC key to switch between windows. However, as you gain experience with DFL, you may want to remain in the duplicate list window and execute the functions directly. The designated keys to do this are described below; they are also listed in the pull-down windows. Help System DFL is equipped with a complete, on-line, context sensitive help system. At virtually any time, you can press the F1 key and obtain specific help about the menu choice which is highlighted. Press the ESCAPE key to return to the program. If you need more help after looking at the context help window, press F1 again to obtain access to the entire help text. You can then scroll through the help information using the cursor control keys. Press ESCAPE from this help window and you will again return to the menu system. Help is also available when you are viewing a file. Again, press F1 to access help information specifically written to give you assistance about the file viewing functions available. Scan Status Window You will find the following items in the upper three windows on the main screen. These windows report basic statistics determined while DFL is running. Directories - Total directories scanned. Files - Total files scanned. Duplicates - Total duplicate files found. Dupe Bytes - Total bytes in the duplicate files. Scan Style Window Mode - Current scan mode (Alias/Name/Length/Name 1-11 ). Sort - List subsort style. How file groups are sorted. Disk Status Window Disk - Current drive being displayed. Disk total - Total bytes on current drive. Disk free - Total free bytes on current drive. Disk dups - Total bytes in duplicate files on current drive. Duplicate List Window (Non-menu mode) After the list of duplicate files has been generated, the list appears in the duplicate list window. You can move between the duplicate list and menu windows by simply pressing the ESCAPE key whenever DFL is waiting for a key-stroke. All of the cursor keys are active while you are in the duplicate list window. The horizontal motion cursor keys will move you from one entry to another in the main menu bar at the top of the screen. The Page 9 vertical cursor motion keys will move you through the sub-menu items for each main function. Select any function by pressing the ENTER key. Running DFL DFL can be run in three different ways: from the DOS command line, from a batch file, and interactively using the menu system. Unattended You can run DFL unattended by installing the DFL command line you want to use, making sure to include the list file option (/l) or the save option (/s). These options direct DFL to process, write the duplicate list or save its state and then return to DOS. A Fresh Start If for any reason you wish to rebuild the list of files, you can activate the "BEGIN SCAN" function in the "RUN" menu. Any existing list will be discarded. Normally, this is not needed since DFL maintains a list of all files found internally. But, suit yourself. Resorting Before DFL can locate the duplicate files, it must first build a list of all of the files on the disk or disks to be processed. If enabled, this will also include files stored in archive files. After the list is built, DFL will sort the list according to the mode selected: alphabetically if NAME mode has been selected, or by file length if ALIAS mode has been selected. After using the list as it was originally prepared and sorted, you may change the mode and resort by commanding DFL to start using the "RESORT" option in the "RUN" menu. In this case, DFL will use the previously accumulated list of files. Duplicate File Search Modes There are six duplicate search modes available. They are described in the next four paragraphs. Name Mode In NAME mode, DFL will look for files which have the same name. If your hard disk is like mine, you may have several copies of COMMAND.COM, for example, in various directories. By building a list of files and sorting the list alphabetically, files with the same name will be adjacent in the list. DFL will then display groups of two or more files with the same name in the duplicate window. A blank line will separate each adjacent group. The files in each group are selected based solely on a name match. This means that, although the names are the same, the contents may not Page 10 be. For example, you will probably locate a large number of "README" files. Practically every program I use has one. To see if the contents are the same, DFL gives you the option of comparing the contents of any two files. The use of this option is described in detail elsewhere in this manual. FastAlias Mode (File CRCs) In FastAlias mode, DFL attempts to locate files with duplicate contents using 32 bit CRCs. That is, files with equal lengths and equal CRCs are assumed to be duplicate. The chances of two files meeting this criteria and having different contents are on the order of 1 in millions. Under this mode, files that are determined to be duplicate are PRACTICALLY GUARANTEED to actually be duplicate. The benefits of this mode are: 1.The files are never actually compared byte-by-byte as in FullAlias mode (described below). This dramatically decreases the search time and disk activity. 2.Very time-consuming recursive situations that occur in previous versions of DFL are avoided. 3.DFL uses the same 32 bit CRC that is used in ZIP files. This means that doing a FastAlias search through ZIP files is incredibly fast because CRCs for the archived files are already computed and files never need to be extracted for a byte-by-byte comparison. FullAlias Mode. (File Contents) In FullAlias mode, DFL attempts to locate files with duplicate contents by performing byte-by-byte comparisons of the contents of equal length & CRC files. Under this mode, files that are determined to be duplicate are GUARANTEED to actually be duplicate. This mode is essentially the same as FastAlias (described above) with the addition that the contents of two files are compared after the length and CRC are determined to be equal. The benefits of this mode are: 1.Because of the CRC layer, DFL knows ahead of time which files actually need to be compared and thus, performs fewer comparisons. Previous versions of DFL took the John Wayne approach and compared all equal length files. Users of older versions of DFL should notice a dramatic speed improvement in their Alias searches. 2.Unlike the 1-in-millions possibility under FastAlias, duplicate files found by FullAlias are GUARANTEED duplicate. Length Mode In length mode, DFL will look for files having the same length. The files are not checked automatically to see if they have the same contents. You must use the file compare function on individual pairs of files manually to check for matching contents. Partial Name Mode In the partial name mode, files are added to the duplicate window if the first few characters of their file names are the same. From the Page 11 mode select menu, you can set the length of the number of required matching characters to any number from 1 to 11. For example, if this mode is run with a three character match requirement, the files "DFL261.EXE" and "DFL.ZIP" will be shown as duplicates. Obviously, the file comparison function must be used to check for duplicate contents. Dos Path Mode Selecting this mode will cause DFL to scan your Path (see your dos manual for a description of the Path) for duplicate executables. The selected disks and scan mask are ignored. Only files matching *.EXE, *.COM and *.BAT on the Path are examined. As an example, DFL.EXE, DFL.COM and DFL.BAT are duplicate executables that, if in the Path, can cause some frustrating confusion. The Filename Mask File name masks can be used to limit the search to files matching the given masks. For example, you can process only executable files by using the mask "*.EXE" or "*.COM". The Drive Scan List DFL can process any number of disk drives. Using the "SELECT DISKS" function in the "SETUP" menu, you can turn on or off any combination of the available drives. All drives turned on will be processed in a single processing run. Saving the Duplicate List After DFL has generated the list of duplicates, you may want to postpone your review of the list until a later time. DFL can help by allowing you to write the list to an ASCII text file. You can then print the file, or edit it with any editor, as you see fit. Use function F9. DFL Online Functions Overview When you operate DFL in the interactive mode, there are three active windows, plus several status display windows available. These will all be discussed below. DFL has three active windows: the menu window, the duplicate list window, and the file viewing window. The menu window gives you access to all of the program functions using a system of pulldown sub-menus. The duplicate list window is used to display the groups of duplicate files after your disk drives have been ana-lyzed. And the file viewing window is used to view any file from the list in the duplicate window. The Menu Window Page 12 The first window available is the MENU window. In this window, you can access most of the DFL functions. The arrow keys are used to move from function to function, with the current function highlighted using reverse video. The horizontal cursor keys move you from one primary function to another. For the primary function selected, the appropriate sub-menu will be displayed. The vertical cursor keys are used to move from one sub-function to another. For all of these functions, a context sensitive help window can be called up simply be pressing the F1 key. This window will explain the current function. You activate the current function by pressing the ENTER key. DFL will go on to perform whatever function you have requested. All of the functions available in the menu window will be described below. In addition to accessing functions using the cursor and ENTER key, DFL will also accept function commands directly at any time. Certain keys will immediately activate corresponding functions. These hot-keys are listed in the sub-windows and described below as well. The Duplicate Window The DUPLICATE window is used by DFL to present the list of duplicate files. After your disks have been processed, DFL will display all duplicates as separate groups in the duplicate window. Along with each file name, you will see the path to the file, the size of the file, the date it was last written, and the time of the last write. Files which are contained in an archive of some type will be marked by an asterisk. The last file name in the path for such a file will have the normal archive suffix. This will indicate the type of archive which contains the file. For example, if the suffix is ".ZIP", then the file was found in an archive processed by the programs offered by PKWARE, Inc. You can scroll through the list of files in this window, compare any two files, view any file, delete any single file, tag and delete any number of files, or write the list of duplicates to an output file for later processing. How to perform these functions is described in various sections below. On the left vertical frame of this window, a small marker appears and indicates your relative position in the full list of duplicates. This marker moves from top to bottom as you scroll toward the end of the list. This helps you estimate where you are in the total list. The File View Window The file VIEW window allows you to view any file listed in the duplicate window. Often, this will help you in deciding whether or not to delete a file. While you are in the duplicate window, a single file is highlighted at any given time. You can immediately view the file by pressing the F10 key. The VIEW window will open and replace the duplicate window with the contents of the selected file. Page 13 You can scroll through the file, left and right, up or down, using the cursor control keys. You can also move to the beginning or end of the file by pressing the HOME and END keys. Naturally, a help window can be accessed using F1 to describe all of the active keys available. Global Functions All of the functions available using the cursor movement and ENTER keys can be accessed directly using the global function keys described below. In general, most of these keys are active only while you are in the MENU or DUPLICATE windows. ESC Menu & Non-menu Toggle The ESCAPE key provides a number of utility functions. It is used to toggle between the MENU and DUPLICATE windows. When you are viewing a file or a help screen, the ESC key is used to return to the prior MENU or DUPLICATE window. Alt-H Help Menu The Help Menu gives direct access to the context help topics and the main help. You can access context sensitive help at most times by pressing the F1 key. Immediately, a window will open with information regarding the specific function you are considering. If you press F1 while in a context sensitive help screen, you will move into the full help system. From there, you can access all of the normal on-line help topics. Exit from the help screens and menus by pressing the ESC key. Alt-S Setup Menu The setup menu is used to configure DFL for the specific processing run you are beginning, and can be accessed by pressing the Alt-S key. This menu provides access to the drive, mask and mode selections. It also branches to the archive definitions and other miscellaneous Alt-R Run Menu The run menu is used to start a DFL processing run, and can be accessed by pressing the Alt-R key. If you have already built a list of files, you can have DFL resort the list for a different mode, and then build a new list of duplicates. In this way, you can save some time when making a series of different processing runs. The run menu also gives access to the security scanning features. Please examine the Security Build & Report section of this document. This is listed in the table of contents. Page 14 Alt-F File Menu The File menu is used to exit DFL and return to DOS, or to shell to DOS temporarily, and can be accessed by pressing the Alt-F key. You can also save and print from here. When you exit to DOS, all of the file list information accumulated by DFL is lost, unless you have written the duplicate list to a file. You can shell to DOS to do whatever miscellaneous functions you desire. Since DFL uses a virtual memory system to store its internal data tables, a lot of memory is available to execute DOS functions, and the file list information is not lost. If you have shelled out to DOS, you can return to DFL by typing "EXIT" at any DOS prompt. Alt-A Analyze menu This menu contains various analysis commands that can be used on files in the duplicate list window. Security Build & Report We have added system security functions to DFL. The way this works is you first 'build' and security database and later, you can scan your system against that database to determine what changes have occured. First, select the disks you want to scan. Then select the files masks to filter the filenames to be scanned. You'll probably want to leave the file mask at *.* so everything is scanned. Then, select 'Security Build' from the Run Menu. DFL will scan the drives and compute a CRC fingerprint for each file. Then DFL will ask you for a filename to save this information as a 'Security Database'. Note: You can specify Include and Exclude directories on the DFL startup command line too. For example, if you want to build a security database for the directory tree F:\SYSTEM, just run DFL /is=f:\system, goto the Run Menu and select Security Build. To perform a Security Scan or Report, goto the Run Menu and select 'Security Report'. DFL will ask you for the filename of the previously saved security database. Then DFL will load the database and check every file for changes in date, time, length, existence and CRC. The CRC check is powerful because it can detect changes in files related to viruses or just plain disk trouble. The list of changes will be presented in the Duplicate Window. The flags field with each entry will tell how the file has changed. The flags are displayed as: *ecld Characters for ON states. ----- Characters for OFF states. ||||| |||||--> Date/Time has changed. Security Report. ||||---> Filelength has changed. Security Report. |||----> Content has changed. Security Report. ||-----> File no longer exists. Security Report. |------> File is in an archive. Path field show archive. Page 15 You will probably want to sort the list by the Flags field. Do this via the 'Sort Field' option on the Setup Menu BEFORE running the Security Report. From here, the list can be printed or written in ASCII via the Export option on the File Menu. You can also save the state for later examination by the Save DFL State option on the File Menu. The Security Database file you chose during 'Security Report' is not automatically updated. To update a Security Database file, you must rebuild it from scratch using the Security Build function. Basic On-line Commands This is the list of on-line functions and keystrokes within DFL: <Esc>- Toggle between Menu & Duplicate Window. 'A' - Define Archives <F1> - Help 'C' - Define FC.EXE <ShfF1> - Help Topics 'F' - Asc Compare-FC.EXE <F2> - Choose Disks 'L' - Load DFL State <F3> - Set Scan Mask 'N' - Noise Toggle <F4> - Set Scan Mode 'O' - Shell to DOS <ShfF4> - Subsort Field 'R' - See Last Results <F5> - Begin Scan 'S' - Save DFL State <ShfF5> - Resort Scan 'T' - Toggle File Tag <F6> - Mark File 'U' - Untag All Files <F7> - Binary Compare 'W' - Remove 'Snow' <F8> - Delete File/Tags 'X' - EXIT DFL <F9>/'P' - Write File List ^C - Show Disk Stats <F10> - View File Alt F - File Menu Network Setup - Setup menu. Alt S - Setup Menu Security Build - Run menu. Alt R - Run Menu Security Report - Run menu. Alt A - Analyze Menu Alt H - Help Menu <PgUp/PgDn/Home/End> - Page the duplicate list. In the duplicate window, all of the above except : <Up/Dn> - Scroll the cursor bar in the duplicate list. <Left/Right> - Scroll Wide Paths in the duplicate list. In the menu windows, all of the above except : <Up/Dn> - Scroll the cursor bar in the current menu. <Left/Right> - Change to another menu in either direction. The above functions are available at almost any time. You need not be on their respective menus to activate them. Just use the corresponding keystrokes. You may obtain detailed help or a description of any of the functions in one of two ways: 1.Pull down its menu, highlight it with the cursor bar and strike the F1 key. This uses the context help system. Page 16 2.Strike <Shift-F1> to enter the help topics list window. From there, position the cursor bar over the desired topic and strike <ENTER>. DFL Archive Subsystem Overview The DFL archive handling system is a method which will allow you to use DFL with your favorite archive processing programs. For example, many people choose ZIP, PAK, ZOO and ARC formats to maintain their archives. In some cases, you may have several of these archive types present on your disks. DFL can use any of these programs because we actually shell out invisibly whenever we need to access one of the archives. Because we use your archive programs, DFL will always remain current with the latest archive program technology. Also, during the definition process, DFL will determine if the archive file format can be accessed directly. This preferable to shelling to external programs because it is much faster. Defining an Archive To use your choice of archive program, we provide a menu driven configuration process to gather the necessary information. This process is described below. Naturally, it is your responsibility to purchase or register your particular archive programs. DFL will merely use the programs you provide. Just as you have registered for DFL, please register the archive programs you use as well. Basic Parameters When you stop to think about it, performing the DFL functions requires only four of the many archive program functions. These are: a)output a list of the files in the archive b)extract a file from the archive c)delete a file from the archive d)compress a file and add it to an archive Title This is simply used as a reference. Currently, it only appears in the list window where you previously selected this definition and in the output duplicate list. It can be any string of your choosing, preferably something meaningful. Extension DFL uses the file name extension to identify which files are archives. For example, using 'ZIP' will cause DFL to access files with a 'ZIP' extension according to the corresponding definition. Page 17 If the Archive Lister can obtain a file list, the archive will be treated as a pseudo-directory accessible as outlined by the definition. Otherwise, DFL assumes its an ordinary file. Enable/Disable This is a Yes/No option allowing you to enable or disable an archive during the scan. When an archive is disabled, files with extensions that match the Archive Extension field will be treated as regular files subject to the Scan Mask and Mode. Archives can be quickly enabled or disabled in the Archive List window where the Definitions are selected. Screen Save This is a Yes/No option telling DFL whether to restore the display screen after executing any of the corresponding archive programs. It is not necessary for most programs. We use this function to compensate for any ill-behaved archive programs which may be distributed. Start with Screen Save OFF. Later in the definition process, DFL will attempt to create and list a sample archive to help you describe the Lister Output format. If the screen display becomes damaged, this option should be set ON. Archive Programs As stated before, we have tested DFL with as many different archive programs as we have been able to find. The list includes ZIP, PAK, LZH, ZOO, and ARC. With the proper configuration information, the versions of these programs which we were able to obtain all worked perfectly. To enable you to modify your DFL configuration to match a different program you may come across, or to adapt to future versions which may be released, DFL is equipped with a menu driven system to help. Some of the archive programs we tested include numerous functions for your convenience. DFL, however, requires only a very basic sub-set of the possible functions. Perhaps the greatest challenge you may have with your archive files is related to the use of encryption. At least one of the archive packages offers file encryption for security reasons. The password must be provided to access the archive file. Since the password must be provided on the DOS command line which activates the archive program, and this command line is part of the DFL configuration information, to use encryption, all of your archives must have the same password, and the password itself must be included in the DFL configuration file. Most security experts would object to this procedure. We have no alternatives to offer at this time. Page 18 Lister Program & Parameters This is the name of the program which DFL will run when attempting to get the list of files contained in an archive. DFL will search the Dos Path for the given archive lister program name. You need not enter the extension. DFL tries 'COM' and 'EXE'. To obtain any help from the program, hit <F2>. At startup, DFL searches the DOS Path for this program. This makes it easy to run DFL on other machines without worrying about Paths and other related garbage. You will provide the name of your archive program and any command line options needed to obtain a list of the files within an archive. In short, this function is the equivalent of "DIR" for and archive file. These specify the parameters for the archive lister program. These are the same parameters that would normally be entered on the command line. Use '%1' to represent the Archive Filename. To obtain any help from the program, press <F2>. For example, if you are using the ZIP system, the line PKUNZIP -v archive.zip' equates to DFL parameters: PKUNZIP(.exe) - the program -v %1 - the command line parameters Those familiar with the ZIP system will recognize this as the command which generates a list of the files within an archive. DFL will redirect the program output to an internal file from which the necessary information will be read. Deleter Program & Parameters This is the name of the program which DFL will run when attempting to delete a file contained in an archive. DFL search the Dos Path for a given name. You need not enter the extension. DFL tries 'COM' & 'EXE'. To obtain any help from the program, press <F2>. At startup, DFL searches the Path for these programs. This makes it easy to run DFL on other machines without worrying about Paths and other related garbage. This specifies the parameters for the Deleter program. These are the same items that would normally be entered on the command line. Use '%1' to represent the Archive Filename. '%2' represents the archived file. To obtain any help from the program, press <F2>. For example, if you are using the ZIP system, the line PKZIP -d archive.zip equates to DFL parameters: PKZIP(.exe) - the program -d %1 %2 - the command line parameters Page 19 Those familiar with the ZIP system will recognize this as the command which deletes a file from an archive. Extractor Program & Parameters This is the name of the program which DFL will run when attempting to extract a file contained in an archive. DFL will search the Dos Path for a given name. You need not enter the extension. DFL searches for both 'COM' & 'EXE' if necessary. To obtain any help from the program, press <F2>. At startup, DFL searches the Path for these programs. This makes it easy to run DFL on other machines without worrying about Paths and other related garbage. This specifies the parameters for the Extractor program. These are the same items that would normally be entered on the command line. Use '%1' to represent the Archive Filename. '%2' represents the archived file. To obtain any help from the program, press <F2>. For example, if you are using the ZIP system, the line PKUNZIP archive.zip equates to DFL parameters: PKUNZIP(.exe) - the program %1 %2 - the command line parameters Those familiar with the ZIP system will recognize this as the command which extracts a file from an archive. Compressor Program & Parameters This is the name of the program which DFL will run when attempting to add a file to an archive. DFL will search the DOS Path for a given name. You need not enter the extension. DFL tries both 'COM' & 'EXE' if necessary. To obtain any help from the program, press <F2>. At startup, DFL searches the Path for these programs. This makes it easy to run DFL on other machines without worrying about Paths and other related garbage. This specifies the parameters for the Compressor program. These are the same items that would normally be entered on the command line. Use '%1' to represent the Archive Filename. '%2' represents the archived file. To obtain any help from the program, press <F2>. For example, if you are using the ZIP system, the line PKZIP archive.zip equates to DFL parameters: PKZIP(.exe) - the program -ex %1 %2 - the command line parameters Those familiar with the ZIP system will recognize this as the command which adds a file to an archive using maximum compression. Page 20 The Test Run When each archive function is defined, DFL will request a test run. Type 'y' or 'Y' to have DFL test each specific program as it is defined. The following procedure is used by DFL automatically: 1.Create a 32k dummy file. 2.Add it to a dummy archive using the Compressor. 3.List the dummy archive using the Lister. 4.Extract the dummy file using the Extractor. 5.Delete it from the archive using the Deleter. This will allow you to confirm that DFL is properly interfacing with the external programs and make any necessary changes to the definition based on the results of the above tests. When the DFL configuration process is complete, all of these temporary files are deleted. Archive Lister Output Perhaps the most challenging aspect of configuring DFL for and archive system are the steps needed to teach DFL how to read the output file generated by the archive lister program. If DFL recognizes the archive file format, you won't be requested to continue here. The archives will be directly accessed. After a sample run of the archive lister program, DFL will display the output file and have you position the cursor to certain specific fields in a file data line. DFL uses this process to make an internal table which gives the position in each line where the various fields begin, the field width, and other properties. Name Use the cursor left and right movement keys to locate the first column of the name of a file within the archive. DFL will ask if the field is right justified, its rightmost character will always be in the same column. If the field is left justified, its leftmost character will always be in the same column. Enter 'R' or 'r' if it is right justified. Enter 'L' or 'l' if it is left justified. Extension Some archive lister programs output separate the file name and extension. In this case, DFL must treat the extension as a separate field and later concatenate it to the name. In response to the DFL query, enter 'Y' or 'y' if there are no spaces between the file name and extension. Page 21 Length Define the position and width of the file size within a line of the sample lister output file. Follow procedures similar to those described for defining the file name field, and respond to the prompts given. Time Define the position of the file time field within a line of the sample lister output file. Follow procedures similar to those described above, and respond to the prompts given. Date Define the position of the file date field within a line of the sample lister output file. Follow procedures similar to those described above, and respond to the prompts given. DFL File Viewing System Overview While operating in the duplicate window, you have the option of viewing any file. The present viewing feature provides only an ASCII display. Thus, you may not be able to make sense out of what you see when viewing binary files such as .EXE or .COM files. Active the file viewer by pressing F10 while the desired file is highlighted in the duplicate window. The details of the file viewing feature are described below. Screen Layout When the viewer is activated, a new window is opened, filling the screen with text from the file. The top line gives the line and column number of the character in the upper left corner of the window, along with the path and name of the file. Viewer Commands The viewer has a distinct set of command keys identified. F1 - Quick Help The list of active keys and their assigned functions will pop-up in a window when you press the F1 key. Home & End Pressing the HOME key will move the display window to the beginning of the file being viewed. Page 22 Pressing the END key will move the display window to the end of the file being viewed. Page Keys The PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN keys can be used to move the viewing window up or down one page of text at a time. Arrow Keys The cursor control keys are used to scroll the viewing window up or down one line at a time, or left or right one column at a time. ^Home The Cntl-HOME key will immediately scroll the viewing window such that the first column of each file line is in the left-most column of the screen. ^PgUp & ^PgDn Using Cntl-PAGE UP and Cntl-PAGE DOWN will cause an animated scroll of the viewing window up or down a full page of text. ^Right & ^Left Pressing the Cntl-LEFT or Cntl-RIGHT keys will cause an animated scroll of the viewing window left or right 40 columns. 'W' - Mask High Bits Since some text files are written with 8 bit ASCII characters, and others have the eighth bit set to zero, DFL gives you the option of blanking out the eighth bit if the characters displayed are confused. Press the W key to toggle the bit 8 mask on or off. 'T' - Tab Toggle The readability of text files can sometimes be improved by changing the number of columns assigned to each tab character. By pressing the T key, DFL will alternately select tab spacings of 0, 4 or 8 columns. F2 - Print File You may print the file that is being viewed by hitting the F2 key. This function attempts to copy the file to the PRN device. You should not attempt to print a binary file (one that has unreadable characters). Printing a binary file will cause your printer to do unpredictable things. Users' Questions and Answers This is a growing section which contains verbatim copies of email correspondence between W.S. Ataras Engineering and users of DFL. If the conversation was verbal, it will appear here as a close to the actual content as memory permits. We welcome questions from anyone Page 23 even if they aren't registered users. Naturally, not all correspondence will be published here. Question: On the BBS system with over 1.5 gig of HD, I let DFL run for approx 4.5 hours and then the system deep ended (required a cold boot). I mistakenly started running DFL on a 286/10 and might have been successful if I had run on a 386 with more ram. The problem is due to intensive disk operations, the BBS comes to a virtual standstill while DFL is accessing the HDs (expected not a complaint). Answer: I'm assuming you've got a network and the 286/10 was a workstation and you ran with archives ON in ALIAS mode. All of this applies proportionally to non-network installations even without archives. Just substitute references to remote server disks with local harddisks and/or ignore archive program accesses. When DFL initializes it needs to create 2 temporary subdirectories and 5 temporary files. 4 of the files hold the virtual memory garbage and 1 is used to redirect the output of the archive programs. The 2 dirs are used to extract files from archives for comparison (alias mode) or viewing. DFL creates these files/dirs in the root directory of the WORKING DISK which defaults to the disk you were currently logged to when DFL was run. If this disk was remote on the server, then, particularly in alias mode, extremely heavy network traffic will result and any other machine using that disk will degrade. Also, each time DFL extracts an archived file, it must load and execute the corresponding archive program (pkunzip.exe etc.). At startup, the path is searched for these. If they also reside on the server's disk, FURTHER network degradation will result. Here would be the scenario: 1.Two archived files must be compared for alias dupes. 2.Both archives are on the server. 3.The archive extractor (assume unzip.exe) is on the server. 4.The server is also the working disk. a.DFL reads unzip.exe from the server. b.Unzip.exe reads archive 1 from the server. c.Unzip.exe writes archived file 1 to the server. d.DFL reads unzip.exe from the server. e.Unzip.exe reads archive 2 from the server. f.Unzip.exe writes archived file 2 to the server. g.DFL begins reading both newly extracted files from the server to compare. h.DFL deletes both extracted files from the server. This will happen perhaps thousands of times for a big disk with lots of archives and doesn't include the scan phase which, for each archive, runs unzip.exe from the server which reads the archive on the server whose output is redirected to a temporary file on the server which is then scanned and interpreted by DFL which then may tweak the virtual memory files on the server. Whew. DFL does, however, let you specify a different working disk using the environment variable DFLDISK=C or the command line argument /w=c or Page 24 starting DFL while logged to a different disk. When running on a workstation, consider the following: If the workstation has a local physical harddisk - Use it as the working disk. Try to setup a cache for it of about 1 meg. If the workstation doesn't have a local physical harddisk - Setup a RAMDRIVE (fastest option) big enough to hold the two largest equal length archived files plus the virtual memory files (at about 1meg per 20,000 files). Don't lose sleep over the two largest archived files bit. DFL won't crash if there isn't enough space for the archiver to extract files (unless the archiver crashes). Make a guess. Copy the archive programs that DFL will use (pkunzip.exe etc.) to the ROOT DIRECTORY of the working disk. DFL looks there before the path when running external programs. With that setup, everything from the aforementioned scenario would be eliminated except for reading archives on the server disk. DFL would access the local device for all other actions at full blast. The speed of operation and relief to the network would improve an order of magnitude, especially with the ramdrive method. Question: Other than the ASCII file that you have allowed the user to create showing the dups, apparently a complete rerun of the entire scan has to be performed to "restart" the operation. I had thought that you were creating a database file that would allow the "rescan" to be restarted and only check "new" or changed files. Answer: That's true. DFL currently has no way of saving and restoring a session. That functionality will be released in the near future. We haven't seen a high demand for systems like DFL which work from a 'history' database because the disks would still need to be scanned every time to verify the database contents. Effectively, the database needs to be re-created each time DFl is run. There may be some time savings in that as the disks are scanned, certain actions for files which are 'already in the database' would not need to happen. But then, the overhead of determining if a file is 'already in the database' would probably outweigh the other gains. As you can see, we have devoted some thought along those lines. If you have any further ideas, please let me know. The subject is by no means closed. If "rescan" refers to the Resort option under the run menu it works as follows: DFL scan the selected disks according to the Scan Mask to build the base filelist. It then processes that list according to the Scan Mode to produce the duplicate list. Resort basically skips the scan phase and re-processes the existing base filelist according to the Scan Mode (which has probably been changed). This saves whatever time and disk activity the scan phase would have needed (it can be alot on a big Page 25 system with archives enabled). The idea is, during one session, scan your disks once for the first mode search, then search for duplicates by other modes using resort. Question: I reran the DFL on my 40 Meg 386/20 notebook, and the scan took approximately 1 hour. The results showed about 13 Meg of dups (I ran in ALIAS mode doing the compare by size. After deleting the dups that I did not want, I had a few hundred K of dups (I zip some of the work files that I use to save disk space) but DFL showed over 11 Meg of dups. I could find no reason for the very high DUP count. When I tried to goto a different scan, thinking that the scan would take place on the nonexistent database file, I lost all information that I had. Answer: Do you mean this happened?- 1. Scanned by alias mode. Saw 13 megs of dupes. 2. Tagged and deleted a chunk of files. 3. Estimated there were a few hundred K of dupes left. 4. DFL indicated 11 megs of dupes. Were there dupes in archives ? How did you determine there were a few hundred K of dupes ? As discussed under item 2, the current filelist is lost when you begin a new scan (unless you use Resort). Note that the UNCOMPRESSED size of an archived file is added to the total duplicate byte count while the disk space it occupies may be far less. Question: When the scan initially starts, a time remaining is shown, this time is apparently based on the size of the archive, or directory that is currently being tested. The time would start slow and go up and down at random (random to me I am sure it would make sense to you). The time is not accurate until the final stage (the actual comparison of same sized files. Answer: This is true. The time remaining is very hard to estimate accurately during an alias scan. It is a proportion of the number of bytes in files currently processed over the total bytes in files that need to be processed and the total time expired over the total time that will expire. As an example, by comparing the first 10 bytes of 2 100k files, DFL may determine that they are NOT duplicates, whereas the next 2 100k files may have every byte compared to determine they ARE duplicates. There is not way to anticipate the fact that 2 huge equal length files can be instantly found 'not duplicate'. And becomes more complicated when archives are enabled. This throws off the other half of the proportion, time remaining. We have considered implementing some form of artificial intelligence by maintaining various statistics and probabilities for the hardware DFL is running on. This may facilitate better time estimates the more DFL is used on a given machine. In fact, we'll probably be incorporating such a scheme in Page 26 the future, but to tell the truth, other more pressing issues have needed attention. DFL Temporary Files & Directories When DFL initializes, it attempts to create the following files in the root directory of the working disk: 1TMP????.DFL - Subdirectory for archive file extraction. 2TMP????.DFL - Subdirectory for archive file extraction. REDIR???.DFL - File for capturing output of external programs. VIRT????.DFL - Virtual memory file. VIRT????.DFL - Virtual memory file. VIRT????.DFL - Virtual memory file. VIRT????.DFL - Virtual memory file. These files are created only during the archive definition & testing process: FILE????.EX - Dummy file to be archived. TEST????.aaa - Dummy archive to be created. The extension is variable, ARC, ZIP etc. The ?'s represent numbers from 0000 to 9999. These numeric constructs are used to insure unique filenames for the following reasons: 1.It is conceivable that when an external program receives control from DFL such as the Shell or an archiver, it crashes the system. When the system is rebooted, the temporary files would still be present (and possibly hidden or protected) the next time DFL ran, Troubleshooting. 2.DFL adheres to our policy of non-destruction when creating temporary files of any kind. That is, no matter how slim the chance of one of these files belonging to another program, DFL will not overwrite or delete them to make way for its temporary data. Rather, temporary filenames are dynamically generated to insure that with each run DFL has unique disk workspace. 3.A different logical drive spec may in reality, refer to the actual working disk. Or, the working disk spec may refer to a different logical drive. This can cause confusion when DFL scans both disks. 4.Any of these files may already exist for a purpose other than DFL. On exit, DFL deletes these files. DFL may not be able to create these files if there are not enough free entries in the root directory of the working disk. If this occurs, DFL will exit with an error message and you will need to use a different working disk or delete some files in the root directory, Troubleshooting. When manipulating archived files (viewing, comparing etc.), you may notice that the file appears to be in one of the temporary directories above. This is normal. Page 27 DOS Stack Overflow There have been some situations reported where DFL has failed due to a "STACK OVERFLOW." This was reported by a couple of users who had one of those 3rd party disk caching programs. To solve this, we have expanded the internal stack used by DFL substantially, and the problem has not been seen again when the PC TOOLS cache program "PC-CACHE.COM" is in use. However, the stack overflow problem did recur when a different cache program was in use. This was eliminated by changing CONFIG.SYS to include the statement "STACKS=8,512". The original statement was "STACKS=0,0". This change provides additional stack space for OS programs. We have not carried out extensive experiments with all of the available cache programs, and there may be a combination of cache program and STACKS statement which cause the DFL stack to overflow. If you find such a problem, please experiment with your STACKS statement. If this does not solve the problem, by all means report it to us. We will need to know the version of DOS you are using, which cache program and parameters you have, your CONFIG.SYS file, and the type of memory used for your cache. This will help us solve this problem for you and anyone else who runs into it. Error Messages Online Errors Many of the self-explanatory errors are signaled by a beep from the speaker. These are errors such as: 1. Typing past the end of an entry space. 2. Entering an invalid character in a filespec. 3. Typing 'Z' when asked to entry 'Y' or 'N'. 4. Etc... Other error and status report messages appear on the screen to give you specific information if importance. These messages are identified below in alphabetical order. "<filespec> not created." This error may occur when you are configuring DFL to use your particular archive program. During the configuration process, DFL will test run your archive program to confirm that the configuration information is correct. When DFL test ran the archive program, trying to add a dummy file to a non-existent archive, the new archive was not created. This indicates that something may be wrong in your definition to DFL on how to run the "add file" option of your archive program. You should have seen some kind of error message from the archive program. Perhaps the program needs more memory to run. Try removing any TSRs from memory before running DFL. DFL uses about 340k. The archive programs we have tested with DFL require less than 200K to run. Since DFL itself Page 28 uses 340K, you should have at least 540K available. Run "CHKDSK" to see how much memory is available on your system. "A disk drive must be selected to begin processing" This error will occur if you try to start DFL without selecting at least one disk drive for processing. Select function <F2> and choose at least one disk for DFL to scan. "Can't create <filespec>" This error may occur when you are configuring DFL to use your particular archive program. During the configuration process, DFL will test run your archive program to confirm that the configuration information is correct. When DFL attempts to test run the external archive programs, it first creates a 32k dummy file to be archived. This error could indicate a lack of directory space, a lack of disk space, or that the file <filespec> already exists. Identify the specific cause of the problem and retry. "Can't extract that file." In attempting to View an archived file, DFL was unable to extract it from the host archive. Select function 'R' to see the output of the last run archive program. If the archive extractor produced any error messages, they will appear. You may need to free more memory prior to running DFL. Also, some archives contain files that have been encrypted with a password. The only way DFL can extract these files is if you add the appropriate password option to the extractor program's parameter line. "Can't find that program. Try again." You are trying to enter the name of an external program. If it is not on the path, you must specify drive and directory along with the filename. If you do not specify the extension, DFL will try COM and then EXE before giving up. "Can't log to disk" You tried to display the statistics of an invalid drive. "Can't open current file." DFL was unable to access either the marked file or the file under the cursor bar for the comparison function. If the file is archived, select function 'R' to see the output of the last run external program. If the archive extractor produced any error messages, they will appear here. You may need to free more memory prior to running DFL. Also, some archives contain files that have been encrypted with a password. The only way DFL can extract these files is if you add Page 29 the appropriate password option to the extractor program's parameter line. If the file is not archived, then you are faced with a situation where DFL has in memory the name of a file the was scanned moments earlier but doesn't exist now. This can happen if you are running in a multitasking environment and other programs are 'diddling' things in the background. Perhaps one of the background programs deleted the requested file. DFL has no way of knowing what other programs or TSRs are during in the background. "Can't open marked file." DFL was unable to access either the marked file or the file under the cursor bar for the comparison function. If the file is archived, select function 'R' to see the output of the last run external program. If the archive extractor produced any error messages, they will appear here. You may need to free more memory prior to running DFL. Also, some archives contain files that have been encrypted with a password. The only way DFL can extract these files is if you add the appropriate password option to the extractor program's parameter line. If the file is not archived, then you are faced with a situation where DFL has in memory the name of a file the was scanned moments earlier but doesn't exist now. This can happen if you are running in a multitasking environment and other programs are 'diddling' things in the background. Perhaps one of the background programs deleted the requested file. DFL has no way of knowing what other programs or TSRs are during in the background. "Can't run C:\COMMAND.COM" There was some problem in loading and executing COMMAND.COM for the Dos Shell function. The path and filename of the command processor are sought using the environment variable COMSPEC. If that is not found, DFL defaults to C:\COMMAND.COM. "DFL is unable to run that program" There was some problem in loading and executing the corresponding archive program. It may be too big, or not exist at all. "DFL temporary files have been damaged. Must exit." When the Dos Shell function is invoked, DFL hides and protects all of its temporary files and directories. On return from the Shell, they are unhidden and unprotected. If DFL is unable to restore any of them, it must exit. "Different size files can't be the same." Page 30 The binary byte-by-byte comparison function is useless for different length files. Use the external ASCII comparison program for different length ASCII files. "FC.EXE produced no results." The ASCII comparison just performed produced no output. "Files are not equal." & "Files are the same." Possible results from the binary comparison. "Must specify '%1' and '%2' parameters." DFL must pass the archive extractor, adder and deleter programs at least two parameters: the archive filename and the archived file. You must indicate where these belong with '%1' and '%2' respectively as if they were run from the command line. "Must specify '%1' parameter." DFL must pass the archive lister program at least one parameter, the archive filename. You must indicate where it belongs with '%1' as if it was run from the command line. "No duplicate files in list. Function canceled." The requested function will not operate without a list of duplicates. "No file is marked." You must mark a file using the F6 key that you wish compared to the one under the cursor bar. "No files have been tagged. Function canceled." The untag function will not work if there are no tagged files. "No output available" The See Results function will only show you the output of the last executed external program if it was captured. Currently, there is none. "Not enough memory." & "Out of memory." The requested function needs more memory. Usually, this is about 4k. If you see this error, you're really pushing the envelope. Try to remove any TSR programs or reduce the size of the environment space. Page 31 "Problem creating dummy file" To test the archive definition, DFL creates a 32k dummy file named TEST????.aaa. This error indicates that DFL was unable to create the temporary file. "Problem extracting current file." The file comparison functions must extract any compressed files before performing the compare. Select function 'R' to see the output of the last run external program. If the archive extractor produced any error messages, they will appear here. You may need to free more memory prior to running DFL. Also, some archives contain files that have been encrypted with a password. The only way DFL can extract these files is if you add the appropriate password option to the extractor program's parameter line. "Problem extracting marked file." The file comparison functions must extract any compressed files before performing the compare. Select function 'R' to see the output of the last run external program. If the archive extractor produced any error messages, they will appear here. You may need to free more memory prior to running DFL. Also, some archives contain files that have been encrypted with a password. The only way DFL can extract these files is if you add the appropriate password option to the extractor program's parameter line. "Problem running <archive lister>" This error will occur during the disk scan if DFL cannot execute the lister program for an archive type that has been enabled. You may need to free more memory prior to running DFL. Select function 'R' to see the output of the last run external program. If the archive lister produced any error messages, they will appear here. "Problem running FC.EXE. Check FC.EXE rules under setup." This error will occur if DFL cannot execute the ASCII comparison program. You may need to free more memory prior to running DFL. Select function 'R' to see the output of the last run external program. If the program produced any error messages, they will appear here. "Problem running that program" This error will occur if DFL cannot execute one of the archive programs during the test run. You may need to free more memory prior to running DFL. Select function 'R' to see the output of the last run external program. If the program produced any error messages, they may appear here. Page 32 "Problem writing <filename>" The duplicate list output function encountered an error while writing the given file. If you're writing to a floppy, make sure the disk is formatted and properly inserted in the drive. Also, you may have run out of disk space, especially if the duplicate list is long. "That extension is invalid." If any of these characters are used in the extension field of the archive definition, it will be declared invalid- ".*?\/:". This doesn't include the quotes. "That is a DIRECTORY. Hit a key..." This error will occur if you enter an invalid list output filename. "That is a HIDDEN or SYSTEM file. Hit a key..." This error will occur if you enter an invalid list output filename. "That is a READ ONLY file. Hit a key..." This error will occur if you enter an invalid list output filename. "That's not a file !" This error is caused by attempting to perform one of the file operations on the blank divider lines between the groups in the duplicate list window. "The viewer couldn't open that file" The viewing system was unable to access the file under the cursor bar. If he file is archived, then DFL attempted to extract it. Select function 'R' to see the output of the last run external program. If the archive extractor produced any error messages, they will appear here. You may need to free more memory prior to running DFL. Also, some archives contain files that have been encrypted with a password. The only way DFL can extract these files is if you add the appropriate password option to the extractor program's parameter line. If the file is not archived, then you are faced with a situation where DFL has in memory the name of a file the was scanned moments earlier but doesn't exist now. This can happen if you are running in a multitasking environment and other programs are 'diddling' things in the background. Perhaps one of the background programs deleted the requested file. DFL has no way of knowing what is happening while TSRs or background programs are active. "The viewer needs about 16k more memory" Page 33 The viewing system needs about 16k of memory. If you see this error, you're pushing the envelope. Try freeing some TSRs before running DFL. "Too many lines/entry. May not work." The format of the archive lister output should not take more than about 15 lines per file entry. "Unable to open the file. Hit a key..." The duplicate list output function was not able to open the given file. If you're writing to a floppy, make sure the disk is formatted and properly inserted in the drive. "Use caution in selecting an output path" In preparing to write the duplicate list, DFL changes back to the original disk from where it was invoked. If it has trouble doing that, this warning will be displayed before you are prompted to enter the output filename. It means that the disk configuration has probably changed since DFL was started and subsequent caution is advised. This may happen if you run DFL from a floppy and remove the floppy. "Why compare a file to itself ?" This is self-explanatory. "Why view a file of 0 length ?" This is self-explanatory. "You must edit the definition before enabling it." You can't enable an undefined or uninitialized archive type. "Bad file: <arcfile>" "Read error: <arcfile>" "Seek error: <arcfile>" "Can't open: <arcfile>" "Bad name field: <arcfile>" These errors can occur when DFL is directly reading an archive. The corresponding archive is probably damaged. Exit Errors The error messages below are reported when the execution of DFL must be aborted due to some fatal error condition. "Virtual memory file CRITICAL READ error..." Page 34 An interpretation window will accompany this message. This error may occur if you run out of disk space or an actual error occurs on the working disk. "Virtual memory file CRITICAL SEEK error..." An interpretation window will accompany this message. This error may occur if you run out of disk space or an actual error occurs on the working disk. "Virtual memory file CRITICAL WRITE error..." An interpretation window will accompany this message. This error may occur if you run out of disk space or an actual error occurs on the working disk. "Virtual memory file READ error..." An interpretation window will accompany this message. This error may occur if you run out of disk space or an actual error occurs on the working disk. "Virtual memory file SEEK error..." An interpretation window will accompany this message. This error may occur if you run out of disk space or an actual error occurs on the working disk. "Virtual memory file WRITE error..." An interpretation window will accompany this message. This error may occur if you run out of disk space or an actual error occurs on the working disk. "Disk specified by '/w=' unavailable." The requested working disk is not accessible by DFL. "Bad filename mask in '/f=' option." The filename mask follows standard Dos filespec syntax including wildcards. Use 'A*.*' to scan all files beginning with 'A'. Use '*.EXE' to scan all EXE files. "Syntax error in '/d=' option." To specify drives 'C:' and 'D:' as the scan disks use 'DFL /d=cd'. This is not case-sensitive. The command line options are all separated by spaces. Type 'DFL /?' to obtain a help listing with an example of each option. "Syntax error in '/f=' option." Page 35 To use '*.bak' as the filename mask type 'DFL /f=*.bak'. This is not case- sensitive. The command line options are all separated by spaces. Type 'DFL /?' to obtain a help listing with an example of each option. "Syntax error in '/l(a/w)=' option." To specify c:\dfl.lst as the output file, use 'DFL /lw=c:\dfl.lst'. To append the duplicate list output to c:\dfl.lst, use 'DFL /la=c:\dfl.lst'. These are not case-sensitive. The command line options are all separated by spaces. Type 'DFL /?' to obtain a help listing with an example of each option. "Syntax error in '/m=' option." To use the ALIAS mode type 'DFL /m=alias'. This is not casesensitive. The command line options are all separated by spaces. Type 'DFL /?' to obtain a help listing with an example of each option. "Syntax error in '/w=' option." To specify drive 'D:' as the working disk use 'DFL /w=d'. This is not case- sensitive. The command line options are all separated by spaces. Type 'DFL /?' to obtain a help listing with an example of each option. "Bad output filename." The error results if the file specified by the command line option '/l(a/w)=' is not accessible by DFL. If the file is on a floppy, make sure the disk is formatted and properly inserted in the drive. Page 36