Labels:text | screenshot | menu | font OCR: ABOUT written by Ben Hutchings and released as version 1.1 in September 1994 LEGAL The contents of this package are the files: About, About 13, About. doc, About .doc. info These files are all copyright (c) Ben Hutchings 1994, but (i) they may be freely distributed provided no charge is made for them above the costs of duplication, distribution and the media used, (ii) all the listed files are kept together, and (iii) the files are unaltered. The exception to (iii) is that the files may be distributed in a compressed forn as long as the original files can be retrieved from this forn unchanged. Software released under these conditions is often known as Freeware. I reject any responsibility for any undesirable consequences whatever of the use of this software. This includes, but is not limited to, secondary consequences, personal injuries or other kinds of side effects. INTRODUCTION About is a command-line program which displays brief information about the file or files you supply on the command line with it. At present it will display all the information which the List command does - real name (if the file is linked this will be the name of the original file), size, number of blocks it uses, protection bits, date and time when it was last modified, comment attached to it - plus the 'class' of data it thinks the file contains, the DataType group of this data, and the name of the format which the file appears to follow. Details of how file types are recognised are at the end of this file. GROUP INGS USED The classes used are devised by myself: please tell me if you think they should be modified or added to, but remember they need to fairly general. The current classes About uses are: Class nane Verbose description 2-D object a structured drawing, flat CAD object 3-D object or similar a vector object or model of some kind animated graphics compressed data any kind of animation font data an archive or crunched file a font bitmap, outline typeface or font descriptor machine code a file consisting basically of machine language data sound an instrument or other kind of simple sound sound sequence a musical score or music module source code Source definitions the original code of a progran standard definitions used in the making still graphics of a program tabulated data a still bitmapped picture a spreadsheet, database or similar text miscellaneous mainly written information the file was recognised, but it doesn't fit into any of these classes unknown the file was not recognised, or it is in a format which can be used for a number of different types of data The DataType groups are defined by Commodore. I have tried to put each format into the appropriate group but a lot of then have had to be classified as 'unknown' because there is no appropriate group. Please tell me if you have any more information on DataType groups which night warrant a revision of my groupings. The groups I know of are: ID Full nane Official description anim animation Animated picture docu document inst instument Data Types Formatted text with graphics or other Musical instruments used for musical scores novi movie Animation with audio track musi music Musical score pict picture Still picture soun sound Sound syst system System file, such as; directory, text text executable, library, device, font, etc. Formatted or unformatted text INSTALLATION There are two versions of About. The version called simply About' is for OS 2.0 or later, whereas the version called About 13' is for OS 1.3 or carlier. To install either of these on your system disk (where they are most useful), follow these instructions (some users will be asked to change disks at some point): Boot from your normal 'Workbench' disk or hard disk. Open a Shell/CLI. Enter 'Resident C:Copy pure' (this may cause an error, but that doesn't matter ). Insert the disk this text is on. Change the current directory to the directory this text is in - you will have to type something like 'CD DFQ:About'. If you have two floppy drives or a hard drive, then " to install 'About', enter 'Copy About C:'. " to install 'About13', enter 'Copy About C:About13'. If you have only one drive, then to install 'About', enter 'Copy About RAM:', then 'Copy RAM:About C:', then 'Delete RAM:About' to install 'About13', enter 'Copy About13 RAM:', then 'Copy RAM:About13 C: About', then 'Delete RAM: About13' Enter 'EndCLI' to close the Shell/CLI. HOW TO USE THE PROGRAM Except where noted, this information applies to both versions of About. Under OS 1.3, you should install About13 in your C: directory on your hard drive or boot disk as About by booting from that disk, opening a CLI, then using something like: Copy DFO:About/About13 C:About Under OS 2.0 or later releases, you should install About in your C: directory on your hard drive or boot disk using something like: Copy DFQ:About/About C:About The template for the 2.0 version of About is "FILE/M/A" (if you don't understand templates, don't worry!). For both versions of About, the command format is: About {file>} where (<file>} is the name(s) of the file(s) to examine. As yet neither version supports wildcards - sorry. About can be made resident in memory for faster use using the Resident connand: Resident C:About A typical output from About would be: bout .c Size: 4960 Blocks : Protection: -- rued Date: Today Time: 15:58:14 Comment : Class : source code Data Type group: text Format : ASCII - C source (This output comes from running About on its own main source file) FORMAT LIST This is a complete list of the formats which About knous, along with the identifying feature which About recognises each one by. Numbers beginning with $ are in hexadecimal and can be checked by loading a file into a 'hex editor' such as Zap. Identifiers written in capitals are constants defined in Commodore's official includes. All tests on filenames in the 2.0 version use the utility. library's string comparison and so are case-insensitive and future-compatible (I hope). I would like to thank Olaf Barthel, the author of Icon, for releasing the source code to it, from which I drew some of the information used in the recognition procedure. Note that the formats listed as 'begins with ... ' are tested for first, followed by the ASCII format, and then all the remaining ones. Format nane Identifying characteristic Advantage AmigaDOS bootblock begins with $01000428 begins with BBNAME_DOS (' DOS' ) or AMOS data bank BBNAME_KICK ('KICK' ) AMOS icons begins with 'AnBk' begins with 'Anlc' AMOS program begins with 'AMOS Basic' or 'AMOS Pro' AMOS sprites begins with 'AnSp' Arc begins with $1a080000 ASCII first 256 bytes score at least 850 points in total on a systen where normal characters score 4 points, a newline 3, international letters 2, and other special symbols and sone control characters 1 - or, if file is less than 256 bytes long, a proportionately smaller score for BASIC the whole file begins with $f5000000 (can anyone tell me which implementation of BASIC this is?) BBC emulator bitmap font list begins with $0d000000 begins with FCH_ID or TECH_ID ($of00 BootX brainfile or $of02) CGTII cache bitmap begins with 'BXBF' begins with ' <Font Cache U' bytes 2-3 are $0400 Disc Log begins with 'DL1.' DMS begins with 'DMS!' executable GIF 8-bit begins with HUNK_HEADER ($000003f3) begins with 'GIF8' HeIn book begins with 'HELM' begins with ID_FORM, ID_CAT, ID_LIST or ID_PROP (' FORM' , 'CAT ', 'LIST' or 'PROP" ) Imploder begins with ' IMP!' IntroCAD begins with 1234500 ($0012d644) JPEG Lotus 1-2-3 r2 begins with $ffdBffe0 linkable object begins with $00000200 begins with HUNK_UNIT ($000003c7) 1.2H bytes 2-6 are '-Ih', then a version number, then '- Manx 3 library begins with 'aj' Manx 3 object begins with 'AJ' Manx 5 library begins with 'c.j' Hanx 5 object begins with 'CJ" MED module begins with 'MMD' (but see under Money Matters) synth begins with 'MSH' begins with 'Mode14D_Object' (I decided not to count this as ASCII because unlike for example C source code, 3D data is not intended to be MovieSetter data edited with text editors etc. ) MovieSetter production begins with $00000008 MS-DOS command begins with 'xSceneEditor' is Se9 name ends in '.com' and first byte MS-DOS compressed MS-DOS executable begins with 'SZDD' Money Matters begins with 'MZ' begins with 'MMDJ' outline type bitmap list begins with OFCH_ID ($Of03) outline typeface begins with $00440001 outline type metrics outline type size list begins with $00000014 PageSetter begins with $80001001 begins with $1718191d PageSetter page PasteGadgets begins with $1d191817 PKZip begins with 'CLSE' PowerPacker 2.0 begins with 'PK' . $0304 begins with 'PP20' Prodata begins with $61000001 Prodata index Prodata settings begins with $61000002 nane ends in ' _pfp'aor '. bak', and first byte is $42 ProDraw begins with 'PDPF' RMC begins with 'RNC' ,$00 SAS/C library TEX DVI output begins with HUNK_LIB ($000003fa) TEX font begins with $f7020183 begins with $17593647 TEX GF Tracker module begins with $f7832020 bytes 1080-1083 are 'M.K.' VideoScape begins with '3DG1' , newline (see note for Model4D entry) Vista DEM begins with 'Vista DEM File' larp begins with 'WARP WordPerfect begins with $80800000 Wordworth dictionary begins with $00060a00 Workbench drawer contents begins with $f34c Workbench icon begins WB_DISKMAGIC (Se310) Zoom begins with '200 ' begins with 'ZOOM' Zuma font library begins with 'FLIB' Currently ASCII, executable, linkable, AMOS Bank and IFF format files are further examined to decide which variant (if any) of the format they are in. ASCII files are generally divided into groups by their filename extension (which is a group of characters following full-stop which is appended to the main nanc) if they have Sub-format nane Identifying characteristic AmigaGuide begins with '@DATABASE' ARexx source extension is 'ced', 'cpr', 'rexx' "txed' , or 'ult' assembler include extension is ' i' assembler source extension is 'a', 'asn', or 's' C header extension is 'h' C source function definitions extension is 'c', 'cc', or 'cp' GFA BASIC source extension is 'fd' HiSoft BASIC source extension is 'gfa' extension is 'bas' icalc script Modula-2 source extension is 'ic' Shell script extension is 'def' or 'nod' TEX descriptor has FIBF_SCRIPT ('s' flag) set extension is 'sty' or 'text' TEX metafont Transcript extension is 'nf' begins with '?' (Transcript files are really just ASCII files with some control codes and page layout commands; recognition depends on the fact that documents usually begin with some initial page layout settings identified by a +) Special types of executable are recognised according to the following rules: Sub-format nane Identifiying characteristic AMOS environment bytes 32-35 are $00000abe bitmap font device driver bytes 50-51 are DFH_ID ($Of80) file-systen extension is 'device' nane ends in '-filesysten' handler InageFX module nane ends in '-handler' bytes 36-41 are $70ff4e754afc Imagine texture bytes 40-47 are $4e5500000c6d0050 resource shared library extension is 'resource' extension is 'library' Unrecognised IFF types will simply have their IFF IDs given. Some of the recognised types are also naned by their ID code as this is their normal name, but their IDs are included in the code so that their class and DataType group can be quoted. Sub-format nane ID TSUX BSUX ACBM ACBM Amiga Tern TERM ANTM ANTM BootX virus info BXRC CanDo DECK De luxeVideo ANBM DR2D DR2D FIXI FIX ILBM ILBM Imagine ob ject TODD localised catalog CILG preferences PREF ProWrite WORD RGBM RGBM ROT action ROTA ROT ob ject ROTO SMUS SHUS Super-Smooth Amination Jordworth WOWO Linkable objects with extensions of 'lib' will have the note 'library' added to their information. AMOS banks are identified by the type names given at the beginning of the file (bytes 12-19) as music, samples, AMAL data, or assembled procedures. I suspect there are sone other types I haven't yet covered so please tell me what other types there are (and send me a copy of a file of each type for testing) and I'll put them in the next release (probably). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks go to Olaf Barthel for releasing the source code to Icon upon which some of the recognition information is CONTACT ME I would greatly appreciate details of any file formats I haven't covered (as long as they aren't too obscure), If possible I would like a few files of any type you want covered. I will try to return all disks (with the latest version of the program) though I can't promise this unless you enclose some kind of donation (which must be British currency or a cheque drawn on a UK bank, or, at a pinch, IS currency). As yet I can only be contacted by Snail-mail. My address is: Reigate
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