tmb@davinci.acc.Virginia.EDU (Thomas M. Breeden) (08/21/90)
In article <81414@aerospace.AERO.ORG> foy@aero.UUCP (Richard Foy) writes: >In article <1990Aug18.054937.11246@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >>lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes: >... >>>buy a drive. Personally, I think that a _fully_ indexed Fred Fish collection, >>>whether it be on 1 disk or 3, along with a good search engine, would be the >>>catalyst that starts the ball rolling (or the CD-ROM spinning). >> >I would be perfectly happy to have all of the Fish Disks just copied >onto the CD Rom. > >Currently I have a simple ARexx program that does apretty good job >of finding things. I have copied all of the Fish Contents files >(for the approx 300 disks which I onto my hard drive). The ARexx >program searches those files in the background and when it finishes >the whole list it opens a window with all of the hits. > >It is not very sophisticated. If I had the complete disks on a CD-Rom, >it would be very simple to enhance the ARexx script to do much more. > >-- >foy@aerospace.aero.org (Richard Foy) Standard Disclaimer > Is there any current interest in an on-line "every word" index to the Fish Contents files (ie the program abstracts)? (Or does this facility already exist?) As part of testing a set of B-tree modules I am am working on, I constructed a prototype of such a thing. It is certainly quick, but without compression the text, indices, and program abstract files might eat up 5MB on a hard disk. Is it worth completing and polishing? Tom Breeden tmb@virginia.edu -->> Internet tmb@viriginia -->> BITNET
terry@helios.ucsc.edu (Terry Ricketts) (08/21/90)
In article <1990Aug21.123905.9773@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> tmb@davinci.acc.Virginia.EDU (Thomas M. Breeden) writes: >Is there any current interest in an on-line "every word" index to the >Fish Contents files (ie the program abstracts)? (Or does this facility >already exist?) >As part of testing a set of B-tree modules I am am working on, I constructed >a prototype of such a thing. It is certainly quick, but without >compression the text, indices, and program abstract files might eat up 5MB >on a hard disk. Is it worth completing and polishing? I think that the program 'Aquarium' comes closest to what you are interested in doing. There is a copy on abcfd20 that you can ftp and check out. It was originally on one of Fred's disks. The ftp'd copy has been updated to Fish 360. Terry | Terry Ricketts | Internet: terry@helios.ucsc.edu | Senior Electronics Engineer | loel@helios.ucsc.edu | Lick Observatory Electronics Lab | Phone: 408-459-2110 | University of Calif, Santa Cruz |
myb100@csc.anu.oz (08/22/90)
tmb@davinci.acc.Virginia.EDU (Thomas M. Breeden) writes: >>>[discussion on Fish Discs on CD-ROM, + some index] > > Is there any current interest in an on-line "every word" index to the > Fish Contents files (ie the program abstracts)? (Or does this facility > already exist?) > There is already an excellent program called Aquarium on Fish#301 which does this: It has a database file containg *all* the Contents listing that Fred puts out, and also a keyword listing for every entry on each disc. It puts up a menu board to search for programs by type (graphics, util, applicns, games, with or without source, Assembler,C, ABasic, etc., etc., etc.) or name (substring within the name if you can't remember it exactly), or even to search the Contents text for any string there: - want something on BOBS ? enter 'bob' in the string gadget, hit the 'search' button and presto: it lists every entry containg 'bob' (even if the author's name is Bob !) You can even send the output to a printer. This is a *very* useful program (hats off to B.L. Olsson!) and is quite fast (running off HD). > As part of testing a set of B-tree modules I am am working on, I constructed > a prototype of such a thing. It is certainly quick, but without > compression the text, indices, and program abstract files might eat up 5MB > on a hard disk. Is it worth completing and polishing? > The latest update to the Aquarium database is up to FF360 (on the 'new-xanth') [Tad, have you got a new name for abcfd20 yet ? :-) ]. The database is about 600k (one 550k file and some sundry stuff). The program stuff is about 90k. The data is (almost) plain text - no compression. Not a great strain on the HD. I'd be interested in seeing your program - but you've got some stiff competition ! :-) > Tom Breeden > tmb@virginia.edu -->> Internet > tmb@viriginia -->> BITNET =============================================================================== Markus Buchhorn /// | This space Mt Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories, Canberra /// | PMB Weston Ck. P.O. A.C.T. 2611, Australia \\\/// | intentionally markus@mso.anu.oz.au -or- nssdca::psi%mssso::markus \XX/ | left blank ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phone donations: AUS-6-249-0280 Flames: alt.dev.null Disclaimer: standard ===============================================================================
david@starsoft.UUCP (Dave Lowrey) (08/26/90)
>In article <2680.26d1d649@csc.anu.oz> myb100@csc.anu.oz writes: >tmb@davinci.acc.Virginia.EDU (Thomas M. Breeden) writes: >>>>[discussion on Fish Discs on CD-ROM, + some index] >> >> Is there any current interest in an on-line "every word" index to the >> Fish Contents files (ie the program abstracts)? (Or does this facility >> already exist?) >> > >There is already an excellent program called Aquarium on Fish#301 which >does this: It has a database file containg *all* the Contents listing that >Fred puts out, and also a keyword listing for every entry on each disc. > I am working on, and have a very basic version of, just such a program. It takes it's input records, and "keywords" them, placing the records and keyword info in a 'database'. You then have a seperate "searcher" program that takes keywords and finds all of the records that contain the keywords. Since the keyword data is already built, it finds the records extremely FAST. Aquarium has to search the text each time you specify a new keyword. Keywords can be "anded and ored", and can contain wildcards (disk*). It is set up to work with any type of data, but I am using a fish-disk contents file for testing. The original text file is aprox. 1/2 meg in size. The database takes up a little more than a 1&1/2 megs. Projected release date of version one is the end of September. I am looking for "beta" testers who would have use for such a program. I need people who have databases that this could work with. You would have to build the input to my database-builder, but that is a very simple format. I see this product of use for searching customer, problem/fix, documentation, source, and other types of databases. The data needs to be static, but you can re-build the index database any time you wish. The fish database takes about 10 minutes to run on my 2500. It also takes up several megs of memory to run the build program, but the serach program doesn't take much (should run in 512K). If you think you would like to give it a try (for other than Fish Disk data), please drop me a line. Those who would like to use it with Fish Disk data should wait for the "official" release. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- These words be mine. The company doesn't care, because I am the company! :-) Dave Lowrey | david@starsoft or {uhnix1,moray}!starsoft!david Starbound Software Group | Houston, TX | "Dare to be stupid!" -- Weird Al Yankovich