home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Collection of Tools & Utilities
/
Collection of Tools and Utilities.iso
/
dskut
/
ffile20.zip
/
file.doc
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1994-06-20
|
19KB
|
510 lines
Manual for FILE 2.0, (C) 1993-94 by Fefe Soft
=[ Introduction ]=
FILE is the best file recognizer known to me, and I am collecting
things like that. File's job is to analyze files you give to it and
then tell you what it found out about the file. FILE's syntax is:
FILE [-?] [-k] [-o] [-f] [filespec [filespec...]]
FILE without parameters analyzes all files in the current directory.
The -k parameter tells FILE not to touch unwanted files.
The -o parameter lets FILE output the size and CRC-32 of the files.
The -f parameter tells FILE not to ask you if it should kill unwanted
files.
FILE's filespecs are more advanced DOS filespecs, that is, "A*B" will
match "ARB" and not "ATC" like under DOS.
=[ Disclaimer ]=
I have done nearly everything to insure FILE's proper functionality,
but I cannot assume any liability for any damage resulting directly or
indirectly from use or not use of FILE or any other Fefe Soft product.
Neither can I guarantee FILE's functionality or fitness for any
purpose. There is no money-back-guarantee, since this program is
ShareWare, i.e. you can test it before you buy for it, I won't give any
money back.
Especially concerning FILE, much is guesswork. Almost everything I use
here is found out empirically, that is, I tried it on a few samples and
then concluded that it works in general. Of course, this *may* work,
but then, it may *not* work. So don't trust FILE 100% !
If you find something you want FILE to recognize, then SEND ME A COPY
(my Internet account: leitner@inf.fu-berlin.de, or via Snail Mail to
the address below. Even more important: If you find that FILE is wrong
(not counting text files, because this is the best heuristics can do
when only analyzing the first 512 bytes of the files), please let me
know and send me the sample.
However, if you have any problem which cannot be solved with this
manual or if you have any suggestion what this program should do or
should not do then write me :
Felix von Leitner
Gervinusstrasse 22
Tel: +49-30-32700270 ISDN
10629 Berlin
GERMANY
=[ ShareWare ]=
You are allowed to test FILE 1 month, then you must decide if you want
to use FILE further, then you must register, or not, then you must not
use it any longer.
If you decide to register this great program, then send $20 or DM 30 to
the above adress or let your bank put the money on my account :
Name: Felix von Leitner
Account no: 5870043
bank ID: 100 700 00
Bank: Deutsche Bank
If you register (and have an Internet account), I will notify you of
important updates. Nothing will happen to your FILE if you register it,
but you will take a heavy burden off your heart (hopefully) ;-)
By the way, I have asked my bank and they could not help me to accept
credit cards. I understand that most Americans want to register via
credit card (if they want to register), but my bank does not know how
to handle that. If anybody has a hint for me how to accept other means
of payment than cash or via my bank account, I would appreciate it !
By the way, maybe we can trade registrations if you write ShareWare ?
=[ Install ]=
Put FILE into some path in your PATH= statement. Put FILE.DB into the
same directory FILE.EXE is in. That's all.
=[ Unwanted files ]=
FILE recognizes several files I don't want on my system and asks if you
want it to kill them for you. Those are tons of BBS ads and - intros,
TheDraw COM files and 0-byte files with strange letters in their name.
BTW: Just because FILE knows a BBS ad that doesn't mean I know the
number of that BBS or I even know the BBS or I even know the BBS ad,
since several people have contributed annoying files to me.
By the way: I found a BBS ad from a BBS called 'Waves of Warez' which
changed to say 'Warm fuckings to Fefe Soft' or something. Well, that
does not bother me too much, but I am happy that FILE seems to see more
of the world than I do ;) A message to the friendly sysop: FILE 2.0
detects this new intro as unwanted, too ;)
Since only one person tried to send me something FILE did not know and
he failed and almost daily I find new BBS ads, I decided to make FILE's
BBS ad detection better. Now you can make FILE find previously unknown
BBS ads ! I included the hacked program NEWAD.EXE for this purpose.
Please notice that NEWAD.EXE is really a hack, so don't expect error
detection and stuff like that. You just call
NEWAD filename.ext
where filename.ext is the ad you want FILE to find. Make sure that the
file NEWAD.EXE is in the same directory as FILE.EXE ! Please contribute
your new BBS ads to me if you have Internet access !!!
The program NEWINTRO.EXE is a hack from NEWAD.EXE which does exactly
the same, but FILE will think it's an intro (different color).
BTW: You may have noticed that FILE.DB is a text file. If FILE does not
understand a line, it will silently ignore it. So feel free to experi-
ment, but don't expect your changes to work ;)
=[ Debug info ]=
FILE recognizes Borland and MicroSoft debug info. If it finds it, it
asks you if you want it removed. If you are not the programmer, you can
safely throw away debug info and save a few bytes on your hard disk. I
have been told that FILE has had some difficulties on some system, but
here everything works fine and I have not been able to reproduce this.
I suspect that the program file had the Read-only flag set.
=[ Wanted ]=
Things I am especially interested in :
- EXE packers FILE doesn't know
- Image formats FILE doesn't know
- Sound formats FILE doesn't know
- Word processor file formats FILE doesn't know
If you have something to contribute, please send it to me.
Someone tried to send me a disk with some things I should implement,
but the German Post Office clobbered the disk and since I could not
read it, I trashed the accompanying letter by accident. So if you
read this and you were the one sending that disk : I am sorry that
the post killed that disk and I can't find the letter with your name.
=[ Purpose ]=
You just unzipped a demo called LAMEDEMO which contains a nice sound
module. But the demo contains 100 files, called LAMEDEMO.000 through
.099, and you want to know which one is the module. FILE can analyze
all the files and find out which ones are modules, which ones are GIFs.
Since FILE recognizes many popular compilers' executables, it can act
as half-secure link virus checker. It won't find some stealth virii,
and it doesn't know all compilers. But if FILE says the executable is a
Borland Pascal executable, you can be pretty sure it does not contain a
virus (I know of no virus written using Borland Pascal).
Of course, this program can be used malevolently, by a cracker who
wants to know which EXE packer or crypter you used to protect your
program. But reveiling which method you used does not unprotect your
file, so FILE does not really cause harm.
=[ Features ]=
FILE is so feature loaded that I put this section at the end of this
document.
Historically, FILE was an EXE analyzer. Then I added other file types,