INFORMATION ABOUT SNIPDIFF
==========================

SNIPDIFF is a companion to the SNIPPETS collection of public domain and
freeware C source code and information. Since SNIPPETS has grown to over
300K, archived, and since a new edition is released at least once per year,
it has become prohibitively expensive for some people to download the current
version if it isn't on a local BBS.

SNIPDIFF contains only the files that have changed since the last edition of
SNIPPETS. The new format of the SNIPPETS.NDX file allows the included
SNIPGEN.EXE utility to create a complete and fully validated version of the
latest SNIPPETS edition. In keeping with SNIPPETS naming conventions,
SNIPDIFF will always be named "SNPDdddd.xxxx", where "dddd" is the release
date and "xxx" is the archive utility extension. For example, I distribute
the Apr 94 edition as SNPD9404.LZH, using the LHA.EXE archive utility.

If your old SNIPPETS archive is more than one version out of date, is
incomplete or contains any modified files, then SNIPGEN.EXE will be unable to
generate a current SNIPPETS edition and you'll have to download the whole
package, so be sure to keep your SNIPPETS archives intact!

SNIPDIFF contains two control files, SNIPPETS.OLD and SNIPPETS.NEW which,
used in concert with the new format SNIPPETS.NDX contain sufficient informa-
tion to build SNIPPETS with all current files in their proper order, even
deleting old files no longer included.

SNIPGEN.EXE should be run from the directory where you have unarchived all
the SNIPDIFF files and requires approximately 1.5-2 Mb of free disk space.

The command to run SNIPGEN.EXE is:

SNIPGEN old_arc new_arc old_dir

...where "old_arc" is the archive extension of your old SNIPPETS archive
("LZH", "ARJ", or "ZIP" are supported), "new_arc" is the archive extension of
your new SNIPPETS archive, and "old_dir" is the directory in which to locate
your old SNIPPETS archive.

For LZH archives, LHA.EXE must be available in the PATH.

For ARJ archives, ARJ.EXE must be available in the PATH.

For ZIP archives, both PKZIP.EXE and PKUNZIP.EXE must be available in the
PATH. Note that although SNIPGEN.EXE swaps itself out to disk while running
the archiver(s), PKZIP uses a *lot* of memory and it may not be possible to
create a new SNIPPETS .ZIP archive in a single pass using SNIPGEN. If this
happens, you have two choices: 1) remove as many resident (TSR) programs as
possible from your machine and try again, or 2) create a new .LZH or .ARJ
archive and then convert it to .ZIP.