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                         Small Utilities for Dos 1.0

                        by Simone Zanella Productions

Contents

     * Introduction
     * Installation
     * Usage
     * If you want to report a problem...

   This documentation, along with the most recent version of the
   software, is available via the World-Wide Web at
   <http://www.dsi.unive.it/~szanella/index.htm> or
   <http://members.tripod.com/~szanella/index.htm>.

Introduction

   This collection of programs include a few utilities that I've created
   for my personal use in the last year; they can be used to:

   * BLANKIT    invoke a screen blanker; the user must press
                a button on the mouse or a key on the keyboard to exit
                (mouse movements are ignored)

   * BLINK      toggle between blink mode/hi-intensity mode

   * FHEX       locate hexadecimal sequences in a file, with wildcards

   * MERGE      merge two sorted files

   * MOUSE      set environment according to mouse position

   * PAD        extend or truncate files

   * TRANS      replace sequences of bytes with other sequences

   * VMODE      change text video mode interactively (25/43/50 lines)

   * WHICH      print pathname of a command in the path

   Files included:

   BLANKIT.EXE      BlankIt program
   BLINK.EXE        Blink program
   FHEX.EXE         Find Hex program
   MERGE.EXE        MergeSortedFile program
   MOUSE.EXE        Mouse program
   PAD.EXE          FilePadder program
   SUD.TXT          this file
   TRANS.EXE        FileTransformer program
   VMODE.EXE        Set Text Video Mode program
   WHICH.EXE        Which program

Installation

   Just copy the EXE files to a directory in your path.

Usage

   All the programs, except MOUSE, print out a short usage summary if run
   without parameters.

   +---------------------------+
   | BLANKIT -  Screen Blanker |
   +---------------------------+

   Command line:
       BLANKIT [/B] [/M] [/Q]

   Description:
       this program blank screen until the user presses any key on the mouse
       or on the keyboard; in the meanwhile, colorful serpents run all over
       the screen. This is a text-only screen saver; it's not a TSR, it
       is useful when you leave your machine turned on and want to save
       your monitor's life. Unlike other screen savers, which exit when
       you move your mouse a little, BLANKIT ask the user to press a
       key to return.

   Parameters:
       /B  black screen instead of bi-color serpents
       /M  slow mouse reset
       /Q  start immediately, no request


   +-------+
   | BLINK |
   +-------+

   Command line:
       BLINK [+ | -]

   Description:
       BLINK +    activate text blinking
       BLINK -    activate background intensity

       This small program is useful since many programs change blink
       state and don't restore previous state when returning; BLINK can
       be used, then, to adjust things.


   +-----------------+
   | FHEX - Find Hex |
   +-----------------+

   Command line:
      FHEX [/Rx] file hex_sequence

   Description:
      this utility finds all the occurrences of a hex sequence in a file.
      Each character in hex_sequence consists of two hexadecimal digits;
      '??' stands for any character and '**' for any group of characters
      (up to 5, or the number specified with /R). To specify a literal
      character 'c' in hex_sequence, use '=c'.
      An invalid hex character is substituted with '??' before starting
      the search. For each match, the sequence and its absolute offset
      are reported.


   +-------------------------+
   | MERGE - MergeSortedFile |
   +-------------------------+

   Command line:
      MERGE main_file update_file destination [start] [end]

   Description:
      MERGE replace lines in 'main_file' with corresponding lines in
      'update_file' and add the new lines found; the result is stored
      to 'destination'.
      Lines are compared only from column 'start' to column 'end', if
      specified.

      Important: the files 'main_file' and 'update_file' must be already
      sorted on the same field; reading is stopped when the character
      CTRL-Z is read or end-of-file is reached.

      MERGE works only on Dos/Windows text files.


   +-------+
   | MOUSE |
   +-------+

   Command line:
      MOUSE [x]

   Description:
      this utility wait for the user to press a mouse button and return
      setting environment variables:

      YR   to screen row (starting from 0)
      XC   to screen columnn (starting from 0)

      If variables are not present in environment, they are added.
      If any parameter is passed to the program, a clock is displayed
      in the top right corner of the screen during selection and is
      removed before exiting.


   +------------------+
   | PAD - FilePadder |
   +------------------+

   Command line:
      PAD filename [size | +num | -num] [padchar]

   Description:
      Truncate or extend specified files; bytes appended are set
      to padchar (default = 0), which must be an integer between 0
      and 255.

      'filename' can include multiple wildcards '*' and '?'.

      Program behaviour is as follow:
      * if 'size' is specified, file length is set to size bytes;
      * if '+num' is used, num bytes are added at the end of each file;
      * if '-num' is used, last num bytes are deleted from each file.

      All modifications are done 'in place', i.e. specified files
      are overwritten.


   +-------------------------+
   | TRANS - FileTransformer |
   +-------------------------+

   Command line:
      TRANS source seq2find seq2repl [/R] [/Ddest] [/K] [/Sn] [/X] [/Q]

   Description:
      this program replace each occurrence of seq2find in source with
      seq2repl. Sequences can include C-like constants; the following
      escape sequences are supported:

      \a \b \f \n \r \t \v \\ \? \' \"

      and octal, hexadecimal and decimal constants thus specified:

      \...  where ... are 1 to 3 octal digits (0-7)
      \x... where ... are 1 to 3 hexadecimal digits (0-9, a-f, A-F)
      \d... where ... are 1 to 3 decimal digits (0-9)

      'source' can include multiple wildcards '*' and '?'; destination
      files will have the same name as source files with extension ".NEW"
      (if /K is not specified).

      TRANS can be used, for example, to convert between different text
      file formats:

      e.g. converting Dos <-> Unix

      Dos to Unix:  TRANS file \x0d\x0a \x0a
      Unix to Dos:  TRANS file \x0a \x0d\x0a

   Parameters:
      /R  ignore seq2repl (which must be specified, anyway) and
          forces removal of every occurrence of seq2find;
      /D  specify destination directory for newly created files
          (default: source directory);
      /K  keep original names (to be used together /D);
      /Sn skip n-th substitution;
      /X  replace only sequences specified with /Sn;
      /Q  quiet operation.


   +-----------------------------+
   | VMODE - Set Text Video Mode |
   +-----------------------------+

   Command line:
      VMODE

   Description:
      this program let you change interactively the current text video
      mode; supported video modes are:

      80x25   80x43   80x50


   +-------+
   | WHICH |
   +-------+

   Command line:
      WHICH filename[.com | .exe | .bat]

   Description:
      this utility print the pathname of a command in the path; it can
      be useful when you have multiple instances of a program with the
      same filename, and you want to see which copy would be executed
      according to path order.


If you want to report a problem...

   If you think you've found a genuine problem with one of this utilities,
   I'll most effectively be able to help you if you give me the following
   information. The more of this you leave out, the less likely I'll be
   able to do anything useful.
     * The files on which you run filter programs (FHEX, MERGE, PAD, TRANS).
       Either include them in your mail or include a URL so I can fetch them.
     * The exact command line used.

   I won't guarantee to fix every problem, but if you give me a complete
   report, I'll often be able to help.

   Send mail if you have comments or suggestions.

- ---

(C) 1997 Simone Zanella Productions.

E-mail: szanella@dsi.unive.it
        zanella@prometeo.it

Web:    http://www.dsi.unive.it/~szanella/index.htm
        http://members.tripod.com/~szanella/index.htm

Last modified: June 13th, 1997

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