Collection of Tools & Utilities/Collection of Tools and Utilities.iso/asmutil/asm_n_z.zip/NJMOVE.DOC

Text File | 1989-01-16 | 11KB | 276 lines

Nifty James' Famous Move Utility
Version 1.00 of 16 January, 1989

(C) Copyright 1989 by Mike Blaszczak
All Rights Reserved.




REDISTRIBUTING THIS PROGRAM FOR ANY PROFIT WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN
CONSENT OF THE AUTHOR IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.  THIS PROGRAM MAY NOT
BE RESOLD IN ANY FORM.  DOING SO IS A CRIME.  THE AUTHOR ASSUMES NO
LIABILITY, DIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL, FOR THE USE, MISUSE, OR ABUSE OF
THIS PROGRAM.

NJMOVE is NOT free software.  If you purchased NJMOVE from a disk
duplication service, you have paid only for the disk and the service
of copying the program.  If you find that you're using the program,
you MUST REGISTER your copy of the program.

The idea behind Shareware software is that it will allow you to try
before you buy.  Commercial software is governed by bougs licensing
agreements.  If you buy something and open the package the disks come
in, you can't recoop the money that you spent on the program, if its
$59 or $5900.

If you're using this Shareware program often and you haven't sent in
a contribution, you're stealing software.



Introduction
------------

Often, when managing hard disk drives or even floppy disk systems, it
is necessary to move a file from one subdirectory to another.
Unfortunately, DOS provides no command to do this.  You can use COPY
and ERASE to get the job done, but that is very inefficient.  Often,
that method will not work because there is not enough free space on
the disk drive to accomodate two copies of a large file.

Bigger computers, like the VAX and like systems running UNIX can use
the same old RENAME command to move a file to another device or
across directories.  However, PC-DOS doesn't have this feature, so
that's why I wrote NJMOVE.

Oddly enough, the internal "rename" function that DOS has can not
rename a file across a directory or a device.  The rename commands on
larger systems, like VAX VMS, can easily do this.  When using both a
minicomputer or mainframe, and a PC, it is very easy to become
spoiled by the more powerful rename commands.


Enter NJMOVE.  This program has the same usage as the RENAME command
of DOS:

        NJMOVE <source> <dest> [options]

<source> is the source filename, and <dest> is the destination file
name.  Both the <source> and <dest> filenames may contain wildcards.
NJMOVE will handle them in the same way that DOS' own RENAME command
handles them.  The [options] following the command parameters
provide a way to effect the way that NJMOVE handles the files it
processes.

NJMOVE is best understood by examining examples of its invocation,
and studying the result of the commands.  Here are a few examples of
the application of NJMOVE:


        NJMOVE testfile.doc newname.doc                        (1)

Since NJMOVE has a similar function to DOS' own RENAME command, you
can use it to rename files without changing the directories.  Example
1 would simply change the name of TESTFILE.DOC to NEWNAME.DOC.


        NJMOVE \fromroot.txt \wp5\workfile.txt                 (2)

This example moves the file in \FROMROOT.TXT into \WP5\WORKFILE.TXT.
Here, NJMOVE shows it strength over the RENAME command and the COPY
comannd.  With one command, you have moved a file into a
subdirectory.  The COPY command would require an additional RENAME
command, and DOS' RENAME command simply can't do a rename across
directories.


        NJMOVE E:\MYFILE.* E:\MYDIR                            (3)

Here, all the files matching the description MYFILE.* in the root
directory of drive E are moved in to the directory MYDIR.  Again,
this is an example of NJMOVE's file moving abilities, not supported
by an other DOS command.  The program moves the files into MYDIR, and
removes the from the root directory.

It is important to note that, in example three, if MYDIR were not a
directory, NJMOVE would have renamed the files to MYDIR.*.  For
example, MYFILE.TXT would have become MYDIR.TXT.  If you mistype the
name of your directory, you will find that you've renamed all of the
files.

NJMOVE can also "move" files across a disk drive.  This is useful if
you're moving something off of your hard drive to a floppy to make a
backup, or if you're moving something from one disk to another.
NJMOVE will decide that the two disk devices aren't equal, and will
copy the file.  In this example,

    NJMOVE E:\THIS.* A:\SUBDIR\KUMQUAT                     (4)

All of the files in the root directory of drive E, matching the file
specification THIS.* will be moved to the \SUBDIR\ directory of A:,
and will be called KUMQUAT.  The file extensions of each file will
remain the same.  This is just as if you had typed

    RENAME E:\THIS.* KUMQUAT.*
    COPY E:\KUMQUAT.* A:\SUBDIR\
    ERASE E:\KUMQUAT.*

except you have completed the procedure in one quick step.  It is
important to remember that NJMOVE will move a file in this manner
EVEN IF the file has its write-protect bit set.  The file created by
NJMOVE on the new disk drive, however, will have the same file
attributes as the file that NJMOVE found.

While on the subject of file attributes, it is also important to note
that NJMOVE sets the "archive" bit of every file that it renames or
moves.


That's essentially how NJMOVE works.  Especially given example four,
you should have a pretty good idea how NJMOVE can replace the RENAME
command, and how it can be used to replace the RENAME-COPY-ERASE
sequence.

NJMOVE has one option.  If you put /C anywhere on the command line,
the program will ask you to confirm what you're doing.  If you type
"Y", "1", or "T" in reply to the prompt, you will take the action
indicated.  If you type "N", "0" or "F", you will not take the action
and the program will move to the next case.

If you enter <CTRL+Z> or "Q", NJMOVE will return to DOS without
processing any other files.  If you type "A", for "All", NJMOVE will
handle the rest of the files without asking you for your feedback on
it.

If you see what NJMOVE is doing, and you decide that you don't like
it, you can get out safely by using <CTRL+C> or <CTRL+BREAK>.  NJMOVE
sensitive to these keys -- interrupting the program in that way
shouldn't ever cause any damage to your files.  You might end up with
files in both places, but I doubt that you will ever find that you've
erased the file completely.






Errors
------

If there is a naming collision, NJMOVE will not move the file and
will stop execution; not other files will be moved, even if a
wildcard was given as the source file specification.  NJMOVE will
print the error message

    NJMOVE: File naming collision

and return to the DOS prompt.  If you are running in a BAT file, you
will find that NJMOVE has set the ERRORLEVEL to 5.

NJMOVE will terminate and print the usage of the program if you
include /HELP on the command line, if you have specified no files at
all, or if you have used a bad or mispelled option.  In this event,
NJMOVE will set the ERRORLEVEL to 1.

If NJMOVE can't find any matching files, it will say so with a
message that looks like this:

    NJMOVE:    No files matched (Filename)

It will quit with ERRORLEVEL set to 2.  If one of the filenames you
gave didn't make sense to NJMOVE, the ERRORLEVEL will be 3.

If NJMOVE runs out of space while copying a file, or if the
destination device fails or is write protected or somesuch, the error
message you'll get will name what the problem is, and ERRORLEVEL will
be set to 4.

Of course, if NJMOVE completes sucessfully, you'll have no error
messages and ERRORLEVEL will be zero.




Problems
--------

If you run into a problem with NJMOVE, please do write to me.  A
great deal of work went into hand crafting this assembly langauge
program.  I wish everybody to know that I used Microsoft Development
tools to make the package; Microsoft LINK, The Microsoft Macro
Assembler, and Microsoft's CodeView Debugger.  The program was
developed for Microsoft MS-DOS.  At any one point during the
development process, I was experiencing a problem with at least one
of the above pack