(ASCII-) TEXT/FILE TOOLS VERSION 6.1 E (C) K. Th. Hell, Dammerkirchstrasse 32, CH-4056 Basel (Switzerland) ******************************************************************* The >SWISS ARMY KNIFE for [(ASCII-)Text] FILES< contains practically all tools and utilities needed to handle (ASCII/Text) FILES. The CRITICS said:" There is no other program available anywhere on earth which can do more for its purpose - NOT for any money!" " is one of the few golden TOP UTILITIES". INTRODUCTION and OUTLINE of the PROGRAM ======================================= The main features of in general: -------------------------------------------- - ELIMINATE or REPLACE some or all PRINTER CODES - CHANGE/DELETE some or all ASCII CODES in ANY FILE (also BINARY) - SEARCH and REPLACE up to 12 TEXT STRINGS SIMULTANEOUSLY - Do GLOBAL SEARCH or search at specified LINE POSITIONS - ADD LINE NUMBERS to ASCII TEXT FILES - REPLACE UNPRINTABLE CODE SIGNS by INSERTING ASCII CODE NUMBERS - SEARCH for WORDS in ANY TYPE of FILE with many OPTIONS - USE MARKERS to EXCLUDE text from WORD LIST and LINE NUMBERS - USE EXCLUSION LISTS ("NEGATIVE.LST") of words NOT to add to the WORD LIST (INDEX /KEY WORDS/LIST of CONTENT!) - ADD PAGE NUMBERS to WORD LISTS and use individual MARKERS to INSERT MARKS. - CREATE WORD LISTS of all WORDS found (ñ LINE/PAGE NUMBERS) up to 20 MILLION words (provided there is enough space on disk) with a wide variety of options to select words to look for. - UNHYPHEN words during selection for WORD LIST - SORT WORD LIST alphabetically with or without line/page numbers. - COUNT the occurrence of EQUAL WORDS found in the WORD LIST - ADD the original LINE NUMBER to all words found in WORD LIST - SEND WORD LISTS to SCREEN, PRINTER or FILES - SCROLL in WORD LISTS on screen. - REMOVE or REPLACE up to 256 ASCII CODE SIGNS SIMULTANEOUSLY, also in BINARY FILES (CHANGE CODE between ANSI and ASCII). - ADD a certain number of SPACES in front of every line. - REMOVE all the SPACES in front of every line. - REMOVE a certain maximal number of SPACES in front of lines. - REMOVE all SPACES at the end of all lines. - ADD SPACES at the end of every line. - REMOVE MORE THAN ONE SPACE SIGN BETWEEN WORDS - REMOVE MORE THAN ONE CONSECUTIVE EMPTY LINE - OUTPUT any ASCII file to PRINTER, SCREEN or FILE with many options. - CHECK and CORRECT PUNCTUATION MARKS - CHECK sequence and occurrence of all types of BRACKETS - CHANGE UPPERCASE/lowercase characters with many options - CHECK for UPPERCASE characters within words - CHANGE the first character of all words to UPPERCASE - HANDLE SPECIAL foreign CHARACTERS (e.g. transform <Ž> into ) - REPLACE TABS with a certain number of SPACES - TRANSFORM a certain number of SPACES to TABS - CHECK FILE NAMES according the rules of DOS - COMPLETELY UNFORMAT ASCII TEXT FILES (create FLOW TEXT) - TRANSFORM old WORDSTAR FORMAT to ASCII FORMAT on demand. - REMOVE END-of-FILE CODE SIGNS - ADD an END-of-FILE CODE SIGN to the END of an ASCII FILES. - REMOVE or REPLACE individually. - EXTRACT all readable ASCII TEXT out of PROGRAM FILES - HANDLE up to 5 FILES of WORD LISTS automatically. - PATCH PROGRAM/BINARY FILES - SORT ASCII TEXT FILES LINE by LINE alphabetically. - INSERT TEXT/MARKER at a specified POSITION in every LINE - DELETE characters at a specified LINE POSITION - COPY ñ PASTE / DELETE a certain RANGE of every LINE. - ADD/DELETE at START or END of LINE a certain number of signs. - WRITE the DELETED PART of LINES into a new COPY "DELETE.ASC" - OUTPUT only LINES of a certain LENGTH - ENSURE a certain MIMIMUM LINE LENGTH - USE a SEARCH LIST for "SEARCH and REPLACE with LIST" (number of words to search for practically UNLIMITED!). - CREATE TABLES AUTOMATICALLY ! - DATA BASE TOOLS to INSERT/CHANGE/DELETE DELIMITERS and TRANSFORM ASCII DATA BANKS into FIXED or VARIABLE LENGTH DB - INSERT TEXT/MARK at any position in every LINE - INSERT lines with MARKER under certain conditions. - DIVIDE FILES in up to 999 smaller FILES and automatically RE-UNITE these FILES - SPLICE 2 FILES LINE by LINE into one NEW COPY - SPLIT one FILE controlled by MARKERS into 2 new COPIES - PATCH any FILE - COUNT NUMBER of every ASCII CODE SIGN in ANY FILE (Result is in FILE "COUNT.ASC") - COMPRESS ASCII FILES automatically without risk. - and many more features ............................... Special groups of functions are available which handle - TEXT MANIPULATIONS - LINE MANIPULATIONS - SEARCH + REPLACE - CODE MANIPULATIONS - ASCII DATA BASE TOOLS - FILE MANIPULATIONS COMPLEX PROCEDURES might need several steps to achieve the desired result. Important tasks offer options to run on defaults almost fully automatic (e.g. COMPLETELY UNFORMAT ASCII FILES, SEARCH and REPLACE up to 12 text strings simultaneously, SEARCH+REPLACE an unlimited number of strings with SEARCH LIST (even automatically from the COMMAND LINE with PARAMETERS), MAKE FILES READABLE (try to read "COMMAND.COM!), etc. Often, there is more than one way to achieve the desired result! The program uses 16 COLORS for screen output. The COLOR PALETTE may be changed from within the program. SOUND can be turned on or off (also with PARAMETERS). HELP is available in the MAIN MENU. The program runs in text mode, therefore, precious memory is saved which can be used to perform the task. It should work on all compatible computers using DOS version 3.0 or above. Make sure there is ample working space on disk for temporary files. Preferably, the program should be run on the HARD DISK (floppy disks usually are very slow!). For SORTING word lists, the program asks for MINIMUM of 16 FILES. If needed, the computer will give out a message, for instance: "Add a line to CONFIG.SYS, e.g. FILES=16" As a general precaution, do perform all file procedures on backups! ****** offers MOUSE support for choosing FILES on all DRIVES. Overall, there are more than 50 DIFFERENT PROCEDURES included with more than 500 different OTPTIONS. The program is completely MENU DRIVEN to make it AMENABLE for EVERYBODY. ************************************************************ All operations and functions are chosen by answering the relevant questions put forward by the program. Unavailable choices are not shown. Usually, the default answer can be selected by pressing the space bar. This simplifies the procedures considerably. Possibly dangerous file operations need affirmative input by the user to be carried out. Still, always keep a backup file. ************************************************************** is available as a fully working SHAREWARE program WITHOUT ANY RESTRICTIONS. Conditions are given in the file and . A REGISTRATION / UPDATE form is included in the documentation or can be printed by the program itself on request. For details see the file "REGISTER.DOC". A complete DOCUMENTATION is included in the file . There is also a GERMAN version available on request. The program contains extensive error handling routines which should catch most errors (wrong input by the user, number too big, files not found, wrong PATH, missing directories, insufficient memory, printer not available, write protection on disks, and so on). If you should encounter serious problems, the author would be thankful to receive the information necessary to correct possible deficiencies of the program code. Thank you for your support of SHAREWARE. ***************************************************************** When registering a SPECIAL VERSION of is available on request which is faster but needs a 80386 or higher processor. Please, consult the file "REGISTER.DOC" for more information. ***************************************************************** LAST MINUTE NEWS: ================= 1. The procedure "LINE MANIPULATION: DELETE PART of LINE" copies the DELETED part of every line to the file "DELETE.ASC". If nothing is deleted, EMPTY LINES are written to this file. 2. The procedure "COUNT NUMBER of CODE OCCURRENCE" (located in the UTILITY MENU) writes the result of counting ALL CODES (in any file) into the file "COUNT.ASC". 3. The procedure "SEARCH and REPLACE CODE" counts the number of successful replacements and writes it to the SCREEN: "NUMBER of HITS" 4. SEARCH and REPLACE with LIST can be run in two ways: MENU DRIVEN with MANUAL INPUT or FULLY automatic from the COMMAND LINE or from within a BATCH FILE. Full documentation and PARAMETERS are provided in the file "SEARCH.DOC". There is also a SAMPLE FILE "SEARCH.LST" available. 5. For ASCII DATA TOOLS there are some SAMPLE FILES included: e.g. "SAMPLE.SDF" is a data base file in STANDARD DATA FORMAT "SAMPLE.RAN" is a sample ASCII RANDOM file (no DELIMITERS) "SAMPLE.DB_" is an ASCII DB FILE of VARIABLE LENGTH (CODE 46: "," is the FIELD DELIMITER, CODE 13+10 is the RECORD DELIMITER) ********************************************************************* DETAILED HELP is available in the file "HELP.TXT" and the DOCUMENTATION FILE "ASCIIPRO.DOC" also from within the program . ************************ END of "README.TXT " ***********************