R_Utils A Collection of Utilities for the RemoteAccess BBS Copyright (c) 1994, Cabell B. Clarke Jr., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Version 1.00 Documentation -------------- >>DISCLAIMER<< -------------- Users of R_Utils hereafter referred to as 'THE SOFTWARE', must accept this disclaimer of warranty: THE SOFTWARE is supplied as is. Cabell B. Clarke Jr., hereafter referred to as 'THE AUTHOR', disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. THE AUTHOR assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of THE SOFTWARE, If you find THE SOFTWARE useful and find that you are using and continue the use of THE SOFTWARE after 30 days, you must register THE SOFTWARE per instructions in the enclosed registration form (LICENSE.DOC), or stop using THE SOFTWARE, Anyone distributing THE SOFTWARE for any kind of remuneration must first contact THE AUTHOR at the enclosed address for authorization, THE SOFTWARE, all programs, and documentation are copyrighted (c) 1994 by Cabell B. Clarke Jr., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You may share unmodified copies of the whole package, providing that the copyright notice remains intact on all copies, It is forbidden to modify, adapt, translate, reverse- engineer, decompile and/or disassemble THE SOFTWARE. Patching THE SOFTWARE to remove or change author information and/or copyright notices is also expressly forbidden, THE AUTHOR may choose not to fix any problem that is related to hardware and/or software configurations and that causes THE SOFTWARE not to run correctly, THE AUTHOR may at a future date choose to discontinue support of THE SOFTWARE, THE AUTHOR makes no other warranties, expressed or implied. ---------------- >>Introduction<< ---------------- R_Utils are a collection of utilities that I wrote to help me in the day to day operation of my RemoteAccess 2 BBS. They are simple but useful and I use some of them every day in the various types of batch files which control my BBS. I decided to release them as Shareware so that others might make use of them. It must be stressed here that some of the programs are only compatible with RA 2.0x and will not work with older versions of RA. Unpredictable things may occur if you attempt to run those utils in any environment other than RA 2.0x. The R_Utils are: AGSET (ra2 only) FLAG (ra2 only) CITYFIX (ra2 only) CALLER (ra2 only) RASYSTEM (ra2 only) RAEVENTS (ra2 only) R_LOG SPACE Each program is described in detail in the next few pages of this document. ----------- >>CityFix<< ----------- CityFix is a RA 2 utility program for cleaning up the LOCATION field in your user file. Ever notice how everyone types their location differently? I bet you didn't know there were so many ways to punctuate `Richmond VA'... I didn't. This simple utility reads your USERS.BBS file, capitalizes the first letter of each word and removes ALL punctuation from it. There are no command-line parameters for this utility. Simply type: Cityfix The program would make the following changes to these examples: 1) rICHmond , VA becomes Richmond Va 2) HOLLY ,, grove va becomes Holly Grove Va That's really all this program does. It is merely a beautification program for your user file. --------- >>AGSet<< --------- AreaGroupSet (or AGSet) is a RA 2 utility program to manipulate the Areas and Groups in your User File. It is used to change the values in the default File Area, File Group, Message Area, and Message Group fields in your USERS.BBS file for all users. This is useful, for example, if you use your file areas for mounting CD's, or maybe you want certain message groups available on certain days (?). AGSet gives you a quick way to plug in any value you like into these fields and like the other R_Utils, can be run from your batch file. The Syntax for AGSet is this: AGSet where valid switches are: -FA set FileArea to number -FG set FileGroup to number -MA set MsgArea to number -MG set MsgGroup to number You may use all four of these switches on your command- line during a single execution of AGSet. --------- >>R_Log<< --------- R_Log is a program which generates a log entry based on command-line parameters and an environment variable. It will generate log entries in 'both' of the popular formats - Opus/Binkley style as well as FrontDoor style. The Output of this utility may be redirected to the file of your choice using standard DOS conventions. R_Log determines what Log style you want to use by reading the environment variable R_Log. The default log style is FrontDoor, so if you want a FrontDoor style log entry, you need not set the r_log environment variable. Valid settings for the R_Log environment variable are: set r_log=FD ; FrontDoor style Log set r_log=BT ; Opus/Binkley style Log From this, R_Log can determine what style of log entry to generate. Syntax for R_Log is a little complicated and will differ depending on which log style you select. Basically the syntax looks like this: r_log where switch1 -log 1st char of line or \ (no 1st char) switch2 -Product identifier (1st FD entry/ALL BT entries) or \ (not initial entry fd mode) logtext -What you want displayed in log entry The following examples illustrate the r_log operation. FD Mode examples 1) r_log ! ValidOOR Beginning... >> system.log 2) r_log \ \ Calling Home >> system.log would append the following to the file `system.log': ---------- 03 Nov 94 ValidOOR ! 12:00:00 Beginning... 12:00:01 Calling Home BT Mode Examples 1) r_log ! VDOR Beginning... >> system.log 2) r_log \ VDOR Calling Home >> system.log would append the following to the file `system.log': ! 03 Nov 12:00:00 VDOR Beginning... 03 Nov 12:00:01 VDOR Calling Home Remember to use a 4-character product identifier when in BT mode so as to maintain compatibility with other logging programs. The backslash is not valid for Product identifier in BT mode. If you use it, unpredictable results will occur. Use the greater than (>>) characters to direct your output to a log file as illustrated above. That sums up the operation of R_Log. R_Log is not a BBS-specific utility - it may be used for any type of logging you might want to do from a batch file or whatever. The two output styles are however designed to mimic the two popular log formats of BinkleyTerm and FrontDoor. --------- >>Space<< --------- This is a little program for displaying information about the space on your hard disk systems. It displays total and free space for a list of drives. The format for the display is the same as R_Log and Space understands the R_LOG environment variable detailed above. The syntax follows: Space [drive letters] Thus: Space a c d e would display information on drives A: C: D: and E: in that order. Colons after the drive letters are not necessary. Space is not a BBS specific utility - it should work on any MS-DOS system. ------------ >>RAEvents<< ------------ This is a little program for displaying your RA 2.0x system events quickly without having to enter RACONFIG. This program reads the EVENTS.RA file and lists the events as shown in the example below. Output may be redirected if desired. Syntax is merely: RAEvents The events are displayed like this: STA Start EL SMTWTFS Forced Last Run -------------------------------------- ENA 23:59 100 XXXXXXX **** 01-01-80 DIS 04:00 155 ------X 01-01-80 DIS 02:00 123 ---X--- **** 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 DIS 00:00 000 ------- 01-01-80 AN explanation of the header follows: STA - Status of the event (Enabled or Disabled) Start - Starting time of the event EL - Errorlevel to exit RA with SMTWTFS - Days of the week Forced - indicated by `****' Last Run - Date of last execution -------- >>Flag<< -------- This RA 2 utility program makes global changes to your user flags in the USERS.BBS file. It will set, or reset flags for all users. It is useful for things like mounting flag controlled CD's. The syntax follows: flag Valid Flags are: A|B|C|D<1..8> Valid Operations are: On - turn flag on (X) Off - turn flag off (-) Example flag D1 Off would set all users' flag D1 Off(-) That's all there is to running Flag. ---------- >>Caller<< ---------- Caller is a simple utility which allows you to change the total calls number to your bbs in the SysInfo.BBS file. Not something that you'd use every day but a useful utility if you ever need to reinitialize your sysinfo file and don't want to lose that total calls number. Syntax for Caller is simple: Caller So typing `caller 10000' would set the total calls number to 10000 in your sysinfo.bbs file. That's all there is to using Caller. ------------ >>RASystem<< ------------ RASystem is a little utility which displays the contents of SYSINFO.BBS, the file which contains the current caller count and the last caller name for your RA BBS. The ouput of this util is expressed in log format like R_Log and Space and RASYSTEM understands the R_LOG environment variable explained above. Typing RASYSTEM is all you need for this util. The output may be redirected to a file like this: rasystem > system.txt ---------------------------- >>Registration and Support<< ---------------------------- Registration of R_Utils helps to further development of the programs and ensure that shareware continues to work for everyone. Registering entitles you to all future revisions within your major revision as well as the next major revision without having to spend any more money. That includes ANY new utilities which are added to the major revision. I am not one of these software authors that releases a major revision every week. As an example of this, ValidOOR v1 which I released in 9-89 is still at v1.71 with its second major release coming soon. See the enclosed file LICENSE.DOC for more registration information. Support for these programs may be obtained via my BBS. Registration of any of my programs automatically gets you access to the BBS system. I am also available via FidoNet and sometimes Compuserve although I prefer you not contact me on CIS unless absolutely necessary as I cannot be sure that I will receive your message there. Cabell Clarke 5513 Cottage St. Richmond VA 23228 The Boot Factory BBS 804-262-9289 1200-28800 USR HST v32terbo v34 vFC 8N1 1:264/19@fidonet.org --------------- >>Bug Reports<< --------------- Please report all bugs to the BBS address above. Include as much detail as possible so I can reproduce the problem. I answer questions on the BBS much faster than I can using the US Mail so that is the preferred method.