REFORMAT UTILITY


The Reformat Utility is a Visual Basic program that Constructs an 
output file from an input file based on control statements.  The 
program also has the ability to unpack data fields in files that were 
downloaded from the Host.

The program was designed to be called from another Windows 
application (e.g. Access or Visual Basic)


CONTROL STATEMENTS

Reformat.exe reads control statements from a parm data set called 
Parms.txt.  It looks for this file in the same directory that the reformat 
utility is in.

There are three type of control statements that must be specified in 
the parm file, INPUT, OUTPUT and FIELD.

The first control statement must be the INPUT statement.  The format 
for this statement is: INPUT=(pathname).  This identifies the input file.

	Example:   INPUT=(c:\utility\testin.txt)

The second control statement must be the OUTPUT statement.  The 
format for this statement is:  OUTPUT=(pathname).  This identifies the 
output file.

	Example   OUTPUT=(c:\utility\testout.txt)

The remaining control statements describe the parts of the input file 
that are copied to the output file.  The format for this statement is: 
FIELD=(starting position of input text, length of input text, [0 or 
1]).  The third parameter in the FIELD statement indicates if the input 
data is in packed format or not.  0 indicates not packed data.  1 
indicates packed data.

	Example:  FIELD=(18,34,0)       Last Name field

Note: Comments are allowed after the ending parenthesis.




OUTPUT FILE

The output file is constructed by reading an input record and then 
creating an output record based on the FIELD statements.  As each 
FIELD statement is processed, that data is moved to the output record 
and appended to the previous piece of data.

	Example:  	FIELD=(3,10,0)
		      	FIELD-(20,5,0)

The output file in this case would contain 15 characters.  The first 10 
characters in the output file would come from the input record 
beginning at position 3.  The next five characters in the output file 
would come from the input file beginning at position 20.

Input File:    	ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Output File:	CDEFGHIJKLTUVWX


PACKED DATA

To unpack data from the input file you must code the third parameter 
of the FIELD statement as a 1.  This indicates to the reformat program 
that the data in the input file is packed and must be unpacked in the 
output file.  The length of the unpacked data in the output file is always 
twice as long as the length of the packed data field.  The last character 
of unpacked data always contains a "+" or "-" sign to indicate whether 
the data is positive or negative.  If the packed data contains a "D" in 
the sign position, the data is considered negative.  Anything else is 
considered positive.

	Example 1:	FIELD=(3,3,1)

Input File: 	(Hex)		41424309347F414243
		(ASCII)	ABC---ABC

Output File:	(Hex)		30393334372B
		(ASCII)	09347+

	Example 2:	FIELD=(3,3,1)

Input File: 	(Hex)		41424309347D414243
		(ASCII)	ABC---ABC

Output File:	(Hex)		30393334372B
		(ASCII)	09347-

MAIN WINDOW

The Main Window of the Reformat utility has a graph which depicts the 
progress of reformatting the input file.

 



PROGRAM MESSAGES

Write over pathname ?

The specified output file already exists.  The system asks if you want 
to write over it.


ERROR MESSAGES

Parms.txt file not found

The Parms.txt file was not found in the directory where the reformat 
progam resides.

No INPUT parameter record

The INPUT control statement was not found or was not the first record 
in the parameter file.

Error in INPUT statement

An error was found in the format of the INPUT control statement.



No OUTPUT parameter record

The OUTPUT control statement was not found or was not the first 
record in the parameter file.

Error in OUTPUT statement

An error was found in the format of the OUTPUT control statement.

There are no FIELD statements

No FIELD statements were found in the Parameter file.

Error in Parm record ##  - image of parm record

An error was encountered while processing the FIELD statement.  The 
number of the FIELD statement and an image of FIELD statement is 
displayed.

Input file pathname not found

The file specified by the INPUT statement was not found.

Invalid Packed data in input record ##

The packed data did not contain only digits 0 - 9.  The input record 
number is displayed.


PROGRAM FILES

Reformat.exe  -  Compiled Visual Basic Program


CONTROL FILES

Parms.txt	-  Contains Program control statements


SYSTEM FILES IN \WINDOWS\SYSTEM DIRECTORY

VBRUN300.DLL  -  Visual Basic Run time file
GAUGE.VBX       -  DLL for Gauge used in the program