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1994-04-21
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35KB
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WIZ version 2.9
by Ray Van Tassle
1020 Fox Run Lane
Algonquin, Ill, 60102
(708)-658-4941
April 10, 1994
WIZ program and manual copyright(c) 1990-1994 by Ray Van Tassle.
Abstract:
WIZ is a lightning-fast file finder. It will find file(s)
based on full wildcard specifications (more powerful than
standard DOS wildcard), and can also filter by file size
and date. It can:
* select only executable files (EXE, COM, BAT).
* select only archive files (ZIP, ARC, etc.)
* switch you to the disk\directory of a file that it found.
* execute a DOS command for each file it finds.
* look inside archives (ZIP, LZH, & ARJ)
* recursively look inside archives!
* Correct handling of the special files/directories created and
maintained by STACKER, DoubleDisk, DoubleSpace,
Norton FILESAVE, and PCTOOLS DATA Sentry.
It will look on multiple disk drives for all matching
filenames. You can pre-specify several default lists of
disk drives for it to search.
WIZ program and manual copyright(c) 1990-1994 by Ray Van Tassle.
WIZ is shareware, NOT freeware!!!
You are granted a limited 21 day evaluation license. At the end
of that period, you should either delete it and stop using it,
or send in the registration fee of $20 ($15 if you don't want me to
send you a disk).
MANUAL
------
I was tempted to call this program YAFF (yet another file
finder), but I settled on WIZ. This is a funny acronym for
"where is". But it's also short for WIZARD, because it's so
fast it seems like magic, and it's filename matching is so
powerful.
It looks on one or more disks for all filenames (including
directories) that match the specified filename. By default, it
starts on drive C, and goes up until it runs out of disks.
It has been tested, and works, with DOS 3.x, including Zenith
DOS 3.30, DOS 3.31, DOS 4.01, DOS 5.0, DOS6.2, and On-Track
partitioning software. DOS 3.31+ have large
(greater than 32MB) partitions with more than 65,536 sectors.
Zenith DOS 3.30 and On-Track have large partitions by virtue of
using large sectors (1024, 2048, or 4096 bytes, rather than
512 bytes).
WIZ normally prints out, for each matching file, the filename,
date, time, size, and path. The files are NOT ordered or
sorted. All "special" files (hidden, system) are
flagged with a left-pointing triangle after the filename.
Optionally, it will list the files in normal fully-pathed form
(e.g., C:\UTIL\PGMS\ABC.BAT), suitable for processing by a
program which expects normal filenames. When the found file
is inside an archive (-l flag), it will be listed in a form
suitable for the archiver (e.g.,
"C:\UTIL\PGMS\FOO.ZIP FILE.EXE")
I deemed that most of the time, people (including me) want it
to be FAST, rather than in some particular order.
As WIZ reads the disk, it tries to optimize the head
motion, so directories are not processed in order of path, but
in the order that WIZ thinks will be quickest. However, it will
generally look at the files in a directory before it looks at
the sub-directories. However (especially if you have
directories with lots of files and sub-directories), it may
show some files in a directory, then show sub-directories, then
show more files in the directory.
WIZ will ignore STACKER, DUBLDISK, and DOUBLESPACE container
files in the count of files & MB's scanned. This file has
attributes of RHS, and is named "STACVOL.0??", "DUBLSPAC.0??",
or "DBLSPACE.0??"
Likewise, WIZ will ignore the special hidden directories where
Norton's "FILESAVE" and PCTOOLS "DATAMON/SENTRY" move files that
have been deleted. These tools & their directories are a super
undelete, and they are reported by DOS to have been deleted, but
the respective utilities really just have them tucked away in a
hidden place. So WIZ treats these files as not being there, too.
PERFORMANCE & Comparison with other file-find programs
------------------------------------------------------
Some tests, run on a 486/33mhz, searching for a non-existent
file on a large disk partitioned into drives C thru J,
17,000 total files, 747MB in files, in 572 directories.
WIZ 2.9 Target15 FFF45
------- -------- -----
19.1 83.3 53.1 No cache
The command used were:
WIZ c-j:*qwe*
TARGET -e -hidden cdefghij: "qwe"
FFF /e cdefghij: ".*qwe.*"
Notes:
TARGET claims to have real regexp's but they aren't.
FFF appears to have real regexp's.
When used with a disk cache, of 2MB (2048K).
WIZ 2.9 Target15 FFF45
------- -------- -----
18.7 44.3 40.2 PC-CACHE v6.01
1.3 16.3 8.3 " 2nd command
19.7 37.4 30.2 SMARTDRV v5.0
19.5 37.8 29.8 " 2nd command
19.7 83.3 50.9 HYPER386 v4.65
16.1 53.5 36.7
The first line is just after clearing the cache.
The next is running the same command again, giving maximum
advantage to the cache. In my testing, I have found that PC-CACHE
seems to provide the best all-around performance.
In fact, with WIZ, SMARTDRV actually takes longer!! Starting with
WIZ v2.9, it momentarily disables SMARTDRV while it scans a disk.
ERRORLEVEL exit codes
---------------------
0 = Normal exit.
1 = Normal exit. -g changes disk/path
2 = Bad command line.
255 = Internal error.
Error Messages
--------------
"INVALID directory:"
Encountered what appears to be an illegal directory
entry. This is a clue for a corrupted disk, or a file
which is NOT a directory masquerading as one.
"Can't tell if FAT-12 or FAT-16. Assuming FAT-16!"
Just what it says. I've only seen this on networked
disk drives. If you know how to RELIABLY tell what
type of FAT a disk has (other than going thru DOS),
please let me know.
"malloc failed for FAT_buf!"
Can't allocate memory to read a FAT block. Most
likely an internal error.
"malloc failed for dir_sec_buf!"
Can't allocate memory to read in a directory sector.
Most likely an internal error.
"Sorry, out of memory!!!"
You lose.
"Can't open file:"
Failure to open an archive file. Most likely a disk
error. Run CHKDSK.
"Internal error in ZIP/LZH/ARJ file"
The data read from in archive file isn't as expected.
Most likely the archive has a new format, and WIZ
hasn't yet been updated. 'Course, the archive file
may be corrupted.
"INVALID directory"
A sub-directory (whose name is displayed) is not valid.
Your directory structure has been corrupted. You should
run a utility to fix it--Norton NDD or PC-TOOLS DISKFIX.
"Can't recurse in this!"
The archive file cannot be recursively searched, because
it is compressed.
NETWORK DRIVES
--------------
WIZ has been tested, and runs ok under several networks:
Pathworks (Digital Equipment Corp), $25Network (Information Modes),
EBOX (Rupp).
Version 2.7 works on Novell, Lantastic, and other networks.
CD-ROMS
-------
WIZ works on CD-ROM's.
BUGS
----
No known bugs. However, WIZ mostly does not use DOS to
process a disk, so errors on my part, or a change in the disk
structure might break it. The most major bug reported was on
huge disk partitions under MS-DOS 4.01. This bug caused WIZ
to read a random block from the disk, and treat it as a
directory. It made a valiant attempt to march down all the
phony sub-directories, and would actually run for quite a
while before printing one of the "malloc failure" messages.
If you are having problems, try 1) use the "-v" switch, to
isolate the error to a specific disk, 2) use "-vv", to see
as it hits each sub-directory, 3) use "*.*" to see all the
files, and watch until it walks off the edge of the world.
Then call or write me.
Command Line format and Switches
--------------------------------
WIZ [disks:]file_pattern [-sN] [-dN] [-p] [-pp] [-gN] [-x] [-mN]
[-e] [-qS] [-n] [-4]
[-a] [-v] [-l[b][l]] [-cS] [-?] [>output-file-name]