AC - The Archive Converter V3.10 By Donald M. Langhorne Copyright (c) 1991,1993; All rights reserved; ========================================================== Tips: ----- The following describes some features that are available to AC, that may not be readily apparent to the user. Some are undocumented features that the user must understand they use at their own risk! -------------------- | Updating Archives| -------------------- Updating an archive to a newer version. For example, you have an archive that was created using PkZip V1.10. You would like to update it to PKZip V2.04. The first thing to keep in mind is that a newer version of an archiver should ALWAYS be able to extract older versions, and therefore you do NOT need to define two different archivers, just the newer one. It is worth noting that some archivers may require an extra switch to read older versions. You should consult the docs for that archiver, then add the switch to the dearchiver definition. Below are the several methods available to accomplish this task: 1) UI(User Interface) Mode: Select the file you want to update and press the key. 1) UI(User Interface) Mode: Either press F3 for options and turn updating ON, or just press the key to toggle this feature ON and OFF. Highlight the archive you wish to convert and press . 2) CL(Command Line) Mode: when you type in the command line switches add the switch '/U' and it will toggle the update feature to ON. 3) Set it as default:(Registered users ONLY!) You can run ACSetup and set this feature to be ON by default. You should remember that if this is set to ON, and you use the switch '/U' on the command line, IT WILL TURN THIS FEATURE OFF. You would not need to add the switch '/U' if it were set to ON. NOTE: If you use wildcards on the command line, AC will NOT convert like archives unless you turn updating to ON. For example if you want to update 3 ZIP files to the newer version and you type AC /Z *.*, AC will NOT convert any ZIP files. You would need to be more specific. Some examples are: AC /Z *.zip ; AC /Z myfile1.zip myfile2.zip myfile3.zip --------------------------------------- |Using Advanced Command Line WildCards| --------------------------------------- I have tried to make AC as flexible as possible when converting archives from the command line. Except the for the first two, you can chain these commands one after the other to convert just the archives you want. With very few exceptions, the following wildcard combinations are possible: -- '*' when you specify this on the command line, AC will automatically convert ALL archive files found to the desired type. It will however not convert any archives that are already of the desired type(See Above). -- '*.*' Would do the same this as '*'. See previous item. -- '*.' where is the extension(IE ZIP) that MUST already be defined by ACSetup. This will convert ALL files having the extension of . -- ' Where you do NOT specify an extension. If you have an archive file called THISZIP.ZIP and you want to convert it to an ARJ file, you can simply type: AC /J THISZIP AC actually translates this to convert THISZIP.* Which would convert ANY files that have the same name, and all extensions that have been defined in ACSetup. -- ' This is the most specific method, where you specify the complete file name. AC will convert just that file. -- In addition to the above, below are some more wildcard assignments that would be supported by AC: AC /Z m*.ARJ : will convert ALL ARJ files matching the criterion m* AC /Z m1??34.LZH : will convert ALL LZH files that match the criterion 'm1??34' Below are a few command line wildcards that would NOT work and some alternate methods to get the result you want: -- AC /Z MYFILE. : Will fail, use AC /Z MYFILE (No Period) -- AC /Z *.A* : I have not tested this, so cannot say that it won't work, but don't think it would. Instead, use AC /Z *.ARC *.ARJ etc.. ----------------------------------------------- |Adding Comments to Archives During Conversion| *** Undocumented *** ----------------------------------------------- It is possible to add comments to archives when using AC, however I will not garauntee a fix if you have problems. When you define an archiver in ACSetup, you can enter ANY valid command line options as a default switch. If you enter the switch to create comments for archive files, when AC converts the archive, you will be able to enter comments. As of this version, AC uses DOS windows for output during conversion, and you will not be able to see all 80 characters across. The length of the window is about 45 characters. When the archive asks for the comment, you may not be able to see all that you type, if you type past the edge of the window. This does not mean that the characters you type that you can't see don't get accepted, you just can't see them. Example: To create comments for ZIP files, you would normally add the '-C' switch if you were creating a ZIP file from DOS. Run ACSetup, goto the archive defintion for ZIP, and add the '-C' switch to one of the four available normal switches. When you then convert an archive to ZIP, You will be able to enter comments, just as if you ran it from the DOS prompt.