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CleanZ Control-Z Strip or Replace Utility Version 1.00 Released 05-17-89 Herron Software P.O. Box 1288 Battle Ground, Washington 98604 COPYRIGHT 1988, 1989 Phil Herron. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY __________________________________________ THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED AS IS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. THE AUTHOR MAKES NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS PRODUCT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR LOSS OF PROFIT OR ANY OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGE ARISING FROM EITHER THE USE OF OR THE INABILITY TO USE THIS PRODUCT. This product should be thoroughly evaluated using backed up or noncritical data and files. _________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents Section _________________________________________________________________ Shareware.................................................. 0.1.0 What it is.............................................. 0.1.1 License Terms........................................... 0.1.2 Registration............................................ 0.1.3 Evaluation................................................. 0.2.0 Evaluation Version...................................... 0.2.1 Evaluation Menu......................................... 0.2.2 Virus Prevention........................................ 0.2.3 CleanZ..................................................... 1.0 Introduction............................................ 1.1 Explanation............................................. 1.2 System Requirements..................................... 1.3 Installing........................................... 1.3.1 Help.................................................... 1.4 Syntax.................................................. 1.5 Replacement characters.................................. 1.6 Examples................................................ 1.7 Applications............................................ 1.8 Version History......................................... 2.0 Support.................................................... 9.0 Problem Resolution...................................... 9.1 Before Reporting........................................ 9.2 Reporting a problem..................................... 9.3 Custom Modifications.................................... 9.4 Correspondence.......................................... 9.5 Product Catalog........................................... 10.0 _________________________________________________________________ 0.1.0 Shareware _________________________________________________________________ 0.1.1 The SHAREWARE Concept _____________________________ "Shareware" is a software distribution method which enables the potential user to obtain software at very low initial cost, for evaluation on a trial basis. You can evaluate the software in your own environment, on your own machine, with the programs and data that you normally use. You're not required to make payment and become a registered user unless the software meets your needs. Another benefit of Shareware is lower pricing. By minimizing the marketing and advertising expenses associated with more traditional software distribution methods, Shareware products can be priced lower. You don't pay for what you don't need or use. You are encouraged to share the evaluation version of this software with others, so long as you follow the limitations set forth in the LICENSE TERMS section below. 0.1.2 LICENSE TERMS _____________________ This product and its documentation are copyrighted and owned solely by the author, who reserves all rights to any benefits derived from it. It is distinctly separate from, and should not be confused with, those categories of software known as "public domain" or "freeware." You are granted without charge a limited license to use the evaluation version of this software on a trial basis, for purposes of deciding whether to continue using (and therefore whether to register) the product, and to transmit this evaluation version to associates by copying on diskette or uploading to electronic bulletin board services, so long as the following CONDITIONS are met: (a) The program and its documentation file must be distributed together. (b) The program and its documentation must not be altered in any way. If you wish to include notes for other evaluators, please add them in a separate file and include that file along with the program and documentation files. 0.1.3 REGISTRATION ____________________ When you send in the registration form and fee, you'll receive by return mail a diskette containing the latest REGISTERED version of the program and documentation. BENEFITS OF REGISTRATION The registered version WILL NOT include the Evaluation Menu front-end or the forms-printing section of this version. Thus it will be more convenient to use, from either the DOS prompt or from batch files. It will also be about 16K bytes smaller, for more efficient disk storage and faster loading. The registered version WILL include any new functions or enhancements made to date. You will receive notification of future updates and new products. You will be able to upgrade to newer versions at a reduced cost. REGISTRATION FORM The registration form and a pre-addressed mailing cover can be printed from the "Forms Printing" selection of the Evaluation menu, discussed in section 0.2.2 below. FEES The single-quantity registration fee is displayed on the initial Evaluation Menu screen. Higher quantities are discussed below. QUANTITY DISCOUNTS Each registered copy of this software will be licensed for operation at only one location (on only one machine) at any one time. If this software will be in use at more than one location at the same time, the appropriate number of registrations must be made. Multiple-quantity registration fees are displayed in the "QUANTITY DISCOUNT" section of the Evaluation menu. You can take advantage of quantity discounts by ordering multiple registrations of one program or single registrations of several different programs at the same time. You also save on shipping and handling charges by registering several products together. GROUP REGISTRATIONS You can also get quantity discounts by combining orders with associates: (1) Complete a separate registration form for each person. Each person's name, address and programs to be registered are needed for support and update notification purposes. (2) Include only one standard shipping and handling charge. Cross out the "Shipping & handling" amounts on all but one registration form; the combined order will be sent to the name and address on that form. (3) Send all the forms together in one envelope or mailing cover, with a single check or money order. _________________________________________________________________ 0.2.0 Evaluation _________________________________________________________________ 0.2.1 EVALUATION VERSION __________________________ This software contains the complete and fully functional version of the program, the latest available at the time of this release. The program itself is identical to the REGISTERED version. An Evaluation Menu and forms-printing section were added to ensure that: (a) Registration information and forms will not become separated from the program file. (b) Users who might be unfamiliar with the process of displaying a file's contents on the screen or printer will have no difficulty learning about, evaluating or registering this product. 0.2.2 EVALUATION MENU _______________________ The program is invoked from the DOS prompt by typing its name and pressing the RETURN or ENTER key. The initial screen displays the warranty section and some information about the program: Program name, Version number, Release date, Single-quantity registration fee. It next displays the Shareware Product EVALUATION MENU. A single key press will select the following functions from the menu: _________________________________________ ESC - EXIT to DOS without evaluating this program R - READ the documentation (THIS file) x - EVALUATE this program Q - QUANTITY Discount information F - FORMS printing menu - registration & mailer _________________________________________ When you press "R" to READ the documentation, this file will be shown one screen at a time. The display pauses whenever the screen becomes full, and prompts... <downArrow> or Esc The <downArrow> character is similar to the "MORE" prompt in other DOS utilities. It indicates that more is available. Press ESCape to exit back to the Evaluation Menu, or any normal typing key to continue (space bar is a convenient key to use). 0.2.3 VIRUS PREVENTION ________________________ If you'd like to evaluate this software but you're not sure where it's been, you can get a copy straight from the source for a $4.00 charge to cover the cost of the diskette, shipping and handling. If your address is outside the U.S. and Canada, add an additional $3.00 (total $7.00, in U.S. funds). Include your mailing address and the name of the program. By return mail you'll receive the latest evaluation version of that program and as many others as will fit on a 5.25 inch diskette. ______________________________________________________________ CleanZ 1.0 Control-Z Strip or Replace Utility ______________________________________________________________ 1.1 INTRODUCTION __________________ The personal computer can be a convenient note-taker and organizer; with a small pop-up notepad utility or text editor, you can save ideas, research notes and lists of things in small text files, and have them immediately available. You can separate different subjects into different filenames. Another related use for small text files is in saving selected messages extracted from BBS (bulletin board system) capture files. Sooner or later you might want to consolidate some of these files into larger ones, to gather related notes or to save disk space. A convenient way to combine files is to use the DOS TYPE command, with the special characters >> to redirect output and append it to an existing file. For example, to add the contents of fileTwo.Doc to the end of fileOne.Doc, issue TYPE fileTwo.Doc >>fileOne.Doc from the DOS prompt. The need for a utility such as CleanZ arises when you load the combined file into your text editor; you see the text from the first file, but the second file is missing! Yet, if you look at the file in a DIR listing, its size indicates that it does contain the text from both files. 1.2 EXPLANATION _________________ Many text editors and word processors (including the DOS EDLIN utility) indicate the end of a text file by automatically writing a control-Z (1A hex, 26 decimal; also written as ^Z) as the final character in that file. Some word processors write a whole series of ^Z characters at the end of a file. The control-Z character is also known as EOF, since it indicates "End Of File." If you later append more text after the ^Z, then try to edit the file, you won't find the appended text. The editor cannot "see" beyond the "End-Of-File" character. A way around this limitation is to delete the ^Z character, or change it to some other character, so your editor will read beyond it to the appended text. CleanZ performs this function by reading the specified file, then writing a new file without the ^Z characters (or optionally changing them to another selected character). It saves the original file with the extension .BAK. 1.3 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS _________________________ PC, XT, AT or compatible. DOS version 2.1 or later. 80K free memory. 1.3.1 INSTALLING __________________ The program can be run from floppy diskette or from hard disk. No installation is necessary, other than copying the files to a drive and directory of your choosing. 1.4 HELP __________ Can't remember the command line syntax? Issue the program's name without any parameters; it will display a help screen, then return to the DOS prompt. 1.5 SYNTAX ____________ optional replacement character / CleanZ [filespec] [/replChar] Where [filespec] is the string needed to reference a file; can also be shown as [d:][path][filename.ext]. The minimum filespec needed is filename.ext. If the file is in another directory and/or on another drive, the drive name and/or pathname must also be given. The complete filespec for a file named ThisFile.Doc residing in drive A: in a subdirectory named ThisSub is A:\ThisSub\ThisFile.Doc For further information on filespecs, see your DOS manual. 1.6 REPLACEMENT CHARACTER ___________________________ The replacement character is optional, and serves as a place marker in the cleaned file. You might use a replacement character if you want to later find the position in the text where a particular file began or ended. If no replacement character is entered on the command line, all control-Z characters found in the file will be simply stripped out. A replacement character, if used, must be preceded by a slash. The replacement character should not be any of these three: < > | which are used by DOS for redirection and piping. Nothing catastrophic will occur if you do use one of the three; the program will terminate with an error message: CleanZ filename.ext /| - "Syntax Error" CleanZ filename.ext /> - "File creation error" CleanZ filename.ext /< - "File not found" In addition, you should not use the forward slash ( / ) for a replacement character; it will be ignored, and the program will strip out all ^Z's instead of replacing them. Aside from the above restrictions, any other characters can be used, including special characters entered with the ALT key, in ALT-nnn format. 1.7 EXAMPLES ______________ CleanZ a:\docSub\myfile.doc Reads myfile.doc on drive A: in subdirectory docSub; strips all ^Z characters from the file, then stores the cleaned version in the same subdirectory. CleanZ a:\docSub\myfile.doc /~ Same actions as above, except that ^Z characters are replaced by ~. 1.8 APPLICATIONS __________________ A sample application is shown below. Combine.Bat can be used to combine several files into one. Command-line syntax: Combine [FirstFile] [SecondFile] Usage: Combine Main.Doc Temp.Txt will append Temp.Txt onto the end of Main.Doc, then run CleanZ on the result to convert all control-Z characters to tilde (~) characters. Listing of Combine.Bat: :::: TextFile combining utility - uses CleanZ.Exe echo off If "%2"=="" goto NoSpec If "%1"=="" goto NoSpec echo Will combine files in order: %1 + %2 echo Ctrl-Break to terminate now, or Pause Type %2 >>%1 CleanZ %1 /~ goto End :NoSpec echo Syntax: %0 fileSpec1 fileSpec2 echo Appends file2 to end of file1. echo Calls CleanZ.exe to convert any embedded ^Z EOF marks to ~ echo (to indicate where first file ends & second begins). :END Notes: 1 - There are several ways to convert the above listing into batch file form. One is to copy this entire file to another named "Combine.Bat", delete everything except the listing, then delete the leading spaces on the left side so each line begins in column one. Another is to display the listing on screen and use a memory-resident notepad to "cut and paste" it into a batch file. 2 - Multiple colons in the listing are used for comment lines. 2.0 VERSION HISTORY _____________________ 1.00 Initial release. _________________________________________________________________ 9.0 Support _________________________________________________________________ 9.1 PROBLEM RESOLUTION ________________________ Please document and report any anomaly in program operation, whether it's a genuine "bug" or just some feature of the program that particularly "bugs" you. If you're the first person to document and report a problem that we agree needs attention, you'll receive a free upgrade with the correction when it's been made. If you're a registered user, you'll get the upgraded registered version; if you haven't yet registered, you'll get the upgraded evaluation version. 9.2 BEFORE REPORTING ______________________ Things to try prior to reporting a problem: 1 - Reread the documentation to make sure you understand what we thought we understood when we wrote it. 2 - If the system reports "Bad command or file name" when you attempt to run the program, its executable file (or at least the file name you specified) was not found. First, make sure no typos or misspellings have crept into your command line; next, try changing your PATH setting, or make the drive & directory where the program resides the "current" drive & directory. 3 - If the program is being run from a batch file, try deleting lines previous to the line that actually invokes the program, to see if some prior activity is causing the problem. 4 - If you have any memory-resident or "TSR" utilities installed (pop-up calculators/note pads, keyboard enhancements, etc.), try removing them from memory and running the program again to see if the problem reoccurs. 9.3 REPORTING A PROBLEM _________________________ If the problem persists, please document it as completely and accurately as possible; we have to be able to duplicate it before we can begin to resolve it. Include at least the following: 1 - Version of DOS you are using. 2 - Machine type, drives, memory, etc. 3 - Programs executed prior to the problem. 4 - Problem program's name and version number. 5 - Where and how you obtained the problem program. 6 - Address and/or phone number where you can be contacted. 7 - Anything you can think of that might relate to the problem; for example, listings of your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files, or any batch files used to run the program. 8 - Any relevant printouts. NOTE: If you're a registered user, you'll find the utility UserResp.Exe on the distribution diskette; it can be used to print a pre-addressed mailer and a problem report. If you have not yet registered, send problem reports to the address below (or print the pre-addressed mailer from the Evaluation Menu). 9.4 CUSTOM MODIFICATIONS __________________________ If you need custom modifications to this software for your particular application, please write to the below address with complete details of your requirements. 9.5 CORRESPONDENCE ____________________ We welcome any comments or suggestions you might have concerning improvements and future enhancements to this product. Send all correspondence to: Phil Herron P.O. Box 1288 Battle Ground, Washington USA 98604 _________________________________________________________________ 10.0 Product Catalog _________________________________________________________________ This section contains a list of products available or near completion as of this release date; it will be updated whenever new products are added. ChkD - Drive Total/Free/Used report by value & percent ChkM - Memory Total/Free/Used report by value & percent CleanOut - Selective file deletion, with confirmation CleanTxt - WordStar to Ascii convert, ctrl char strip, tab expand CleanZ - Ctrl-Z End Of File char strip or replace FindF - Find File(s) in any directory of current drive Gen - Generate files for testing printer, storage or timing KeySet - CapsLock-NumLock-ScrollLock-PrtSc key setup PrinTest - Parallel Printer Test & Status reporting Qscn - Convert text to executable file for Quick Screen display. ScanF - Scan File for text strings ScanM - Scan Memory for text strings Split - File splitter StoRm - STorage RooM needed for files on any disk/any DOS ver. _______________________________________________________________ | | | COPYRIGHT 1989 Phil Herron. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. | |_______________________________________________________________|