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1994-01-18
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┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ DOS USERS: │
│ │
│ If you do not have DOS4GW.EXE, you will need to get a copy. │
│ It is available on my system (1:203/7707 or 1:203/8055) as │
│ DOS4GW.ZIP. This is the same DOS extender being used for │
│ utilities such as BlueWave, GoldEd, etc as well as many of │
│ the newer games like Doom by ID Software.. │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
If you do not have DOS4GW.EXE in this archive, get it!
Fidonet file request: 1:203/7707 or 1:203/8055, name: "dos4gw.zip"
Internet email: email "fileserv@wmeonlin.sacbbx.com", message body
"get dos4gw.zip".
PSRT - Packet filter & sorter
- Requires 386sx or greater
- Requires 1 meg of extended/ems/dpmi/vcpi/whatever memory
(more memory provides better sorting, ideally, 3-3.5 megs :-)
- Requires DOS4GW.EXE, a special dos extender for Watcom C++ applications
- Disk space: Lots. See below for a better answer.
- Reads and combines .PKT files into one large .PKT file (multiple
.PKTS if from multiple sources; the PKT headers themselves are
preserved for security).
- Reads according to .PKT file time/date stamp order (ie, older
packets will be processed first, then the newer ones).
- Sorts by area, subject, date, and time, up to the limits of memory
(ie, the more memory you have, the more that can be contiguously sorted)
- If AREAS.BBS found (standard AREAS.BBS format), it will be read,
and _only_ the areas found in AREAS.BBS will be kept. Useful if
you get the entire backbone but only need a portion of it, ie
satellite feeds.
To run: see below, _AFTER_ reading these other sections. Violaters
will be assimulated, resitance is useless...
"What advantage will running this do for me?"
PSRT has more than one purpose.. It's original design was to be a
speed-up for my mail processor. Squish, Jam, and *.MSG users will
notice the biggest speed increase, as it won't have to open and
close each message base nearly as often. On my particular setup,
PSRT doubles my speed with Squish, and even makes Gecho noticable
faster than normal.
Secondly; PSRT sorts by subject and time/date. This means that
all of the messages for a given subject will be grouped together,
which facilitates reading. When I get interested in one topic, I
hate to have to jump all over the message base to follow it. Also,
I see the original messages, BEFORE the replies, because of the
time/date sort. Really handy with the lag time of fidonet
technology.
Last, is a feature I myself will never use, but was a 15 minute fix
to add in. Satellite options such as "PLANET_CONNECT" give you the
entire backbone, even if you only want 50-100 of the areas. Not
too many mail tossers handle this very gracefully. PSRT will read
your AREAS.BBS (if it's in the current directory), and ONLY output
the files that are in the areas you want, and throws the rest of
them away.
_Some day_, this might actually become a mail tosser (minus message
base), for those only interested in moving the mail, and not
reading it. However, this is a lower priority, as this utility as
it is already speeds up mail tossing significantly.
"(Hubs) What advantage will running this do for my feeds?"
If you sort YOUR inbound files out, then, for the most part, the
output of your mail processor will also be sorted,
making things work faster for your downlinks. They would be able
appreciate the same speedup that you do. They will also be amused
at 4:00am seeing it toss alphabeticly. :-)
"How much disk space will I need?"
PSRT will read in as much as possible into memory, and then write
it all back out to disk. It will NOT delete the input files until
AFTER it has successfully written the files to disk. If there's a
problem, the program will abort.
What this means, is if you have 1 meg of free (extended/etc) memory
at startup, you'll need about a meg of disk space. If you have 8
megs of ram, you may need as much as 8 megs of disk space.
Worst case scenario, you'll need as much disk space free as you
have tied up in all of your .PKT files.
"My [deity/exclamation of choice]! Why so much memory?"
PSRT is an DOS-extended mode application. That's 32-bits for the
gizmo freaks. You're going to need at least a meg to make things
run cleanly, but not much sorting will be possible, unless you're
an end-node with a light-to-medium load.
Btw: the types of memory that are usable under the DOS4GW extender
are: Extended, XMS, EMS, DPMI, and VCPI. That's about everthing,
folks. Just make sure it's available. That dos extender may be a
big one compared to most, but it is also one of the most thorough -
and works fine under DV, OS/2, Windows, and of course, DOS.
"What about OS/2?"
Jeff Dunlop has graciously ported the packet sorter to OS/2.
It's not video-intensive at all, and will for the most part mirror
the changes I make to the DOS version. Any questions/etc will be
forwarded to him.
"Will you add XXXXX feature?"
Maybe, but probably not right away. This packet sorter is a quick
and dirty utility that provides two specific functions (AREAS.BBS
filtering, and AREA sorting). I don't plan on turning this into a
major product. That's why it's _free_ - you get what you pay for.
I don't plan on adding fancy logging, automatic decompression, or
kitchen sinks.
To run:
Uncompress any mail bundles that you may have. GUS is a good
program for this; there are alternatives.
If desired, copy your current AREAS.BBS to the directory where
your .PKT files are. If found, it will only keep areas that are
defined in AREAS.BBS.
Run PSRT.EXE in the same directory as your .PKT's.
Here's my config..
┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ cd \bbs\gecho │ Generate a current AREAS.BBS
│ gsetup areas c:\bbs\inbound\areas.bbs │ from my Gecho configuration
│ │
│ cd \bbs\inbound │ De-archive all of my inbound
│ gus .\ /m │ mail archives to .pkt files
│ │
│ PSRT.EXE │ Sort + filter the packets
│ │
│ cd \bbs\gecho │
│ gecho toss scan pack │ Toss the mail!
└────────────────────────────────────────┘
Registration, support:
Cost: Nothing. Perhaps, a netmail "thanks".
Support: Nothing. Unless you're nice about it, and I have time.
Guarantee: Satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back. Good
thing it's free, he? :-)
Donations: Gladly accepted.
Updates: Probably often. File request "PSORT.ZIP" from
1:203/7707. If you need the DOS extender, file request
"DOS4GW.ZIP".
I don't expect to make this a fancy wiz-bang menu-driven program
with fancy setup. I would end up spending 75% of my time working
on that stuff, instead of working on the actual tool. If you don't
like this program, you're not obligated to run it.
Fidonet: Jason Fesler, 1:203/7707
Internet: jfesler@wmeonlin.sacbbx.com
Compu$pend: >INTERNET:jfesler@wmeonlin.sacbbx.com
Re: OS/2 version of PSORT ..
Fidonet: Jeff Dunlop, 1:203/16
Internet: Jeff.Dunlop@dbsoft.wmeonlin.sacbbx.com
Compu$erve: >INTERNET:Jeff.Dunlop@dbsoft.wmeonlin.sacbbx.com
Any netmail sent to me will have their replies _routed_ back unless
you specifically request me to leave it on hold. If you do not get
a response with a reasonable amount of time, it can be that I can
not route mail back to you; if this is the case, send your message
again, and ask me to leave it on hold.
I answer _all_ netmail/email that I receive.
History:
Jan 14 1994
Now reads .PKT files in date/time order (ie, when you
have 10-20 packets from the same source to process).
Tweeked subject sorting to work better on gated internet
newsgroups.
Dec 15 1993
First version, sorts on area,subject,date/time
Dec 29 1993
Added AREAS.BBS option
Jan 05 1993
Finished direct video options; reads directory of .PKT's before
running main portion of program, builds a table of pkt headers.
Cuts down on processing time by not redundantly re-reading the
same headers over and over. (Mainly for _large_ amounts of
mail, ie people who sort the outbound before packing it up to
their downlinks).
Adding in ability to use user-defined extension instead of
.PKT, ie .QQQ or .OUT.
Jan 08 1993
Now making use of the DOS portion of memory.
Read + Write buffering is hard-set to 32k, which is a good value
for DOS to function with, without double-buffering things to the
protected mode environment. Seems to have sped things up by
about 20% this way. (Tip obtained from someone else on the
internet, wasn't _my_ idea! - seems to work, noticably faster!)
Qsort algorithm being used now; also made custom string
comparison functions so that I can keep smaller indexes (16
bytes versus 134..). Net result? More room for messages;
much faster sorting; even faster reading messages in.
For my system, performance has improved significantly, from 50
messages per second to 85 messages per second. This is with all
disk caching turned off.
Jan 14 1994
Now reads .PKT files in date/time order (ie, when you
have 10-20 packets from the same source to process).
Tweeked subject sorting to work better on gated internet
newsgroups.
Fixed bugs that Jeff Dunlop found while porting the OS/2
version.
Jan 18 1994
Got the new OS/2 version from Jeff; rearchiving package and
making available for file request.
Now checks to see how much extended memory it needs to allocate,
before actually allocating it. Stops thrashing on OS/2 when you
don't need it.
You may specify the maximum amount of memory to use on the main
buffer, as well as the AREAS.BBS file to use. Type PSRT.EXE -?
for details.