W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (Keith Petersen) (09/13/88)
The following files on SIMTEL20 have just been updated...
Filename Type Bytes CRC
Directory PD1:<MSDOS.FILEDOCS>
NODESCR.IDX.3 ASCII 60598 FB9BH
SIMIBM.ARC.6 BINARY 61148 FC76H
SIMIBM.IDX.8 ASCII 129710 0AF4H
SIMIBM.IDX is a comma-delimited listing of *many* of the SIMTEL20
MSDOS files, complete with a one-line description for each file.
This file is suitable for importing into any database program that
will accept comma-delimited imports (sometimes called MailMerge
format).
SIMIBM.ARC contains SIMIBM.IDX and SIMIBM.HDR (a PC-File+ database
definition header file).
NODESCR.IDX contains the remainder of the SIMTEL20 MSDOS file listings
for which there is currently no description. It too is in
comma-delimited format.
--Keith Petersen
Maintainer of the CP/M and MSDOS archives at SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL [26.0.0.74]
Arpa: W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL
Uucp: {att,decwrl,harvard,ucbvax,uunet,uw-beaver}!simtel20.army.mil!w8sdzRCONN@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (Rick Conn) (09/14/88)
Keith, your MSDOS file description IDX file was a greate idea! I just downloaded SIMADA.ARC and looked at it with REFLEX, and it worked great. I could view the MSDOS file information without any problem. I've been addressing this problem in a radically different way, writing an Ada program which will interactively display a data base, but I think your approach is much better. I can easily write a program in C on SIMTEL20 to generate a file like your IDX and HDR files for the ASR and then allow the users to download it and use their own database systems to review it. Thank you very much for the idea! One note: a program CCHECK.ARC, which is a PD Lint with C source, is listed under GAMES. You might want to fix that if this is indeed the case. Can you send me a message giving the format of the HDR file? The comma delimited file is no problem. Thanks again! Keep those good ideas coming! Rick -------
W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (Keith Petersen) (09/15/88)
The database of filenames and directories is built with a TOPS-20
program, written by Frank Wancho, called NDIR. It is used to create
our FILES.IDX lists in the top-level PD archive directories.
I have a Unix AWK script which inputs from the FILEX.IDX list and
another list which contains only filenames and short one-line
descriptions. The resultant matches are outputted by AWK to a third
file (in this case SIMIBM.IDX). AWK also outputs to another file all
files for which there is no match (NODESCR.IDX).
The beauty of doing it this way is that a completely new database is
generated each month. Even if I move files from one directory to
another (such as reoganizing things to split system utilities into
subcategories) the descriptions follow right along with them.
The field names and lengths of SIMCPM.IDX are:
Name Length
Drv 4
Directory 17
Name 12
Vr# 2
Size# 6
Type# 1
Date# 6
Description 46
The one-line descriptions contained in the files SIMIBM.ARC or
SIMIBM.IDX with format as described in SIMIBM.INF in the SIMTEL20
directory PD1:<IBM.FILEDOCS> are ideally suited for DBASE III. To
construct a DBASE III database for the files, after the appropriate
structure has been entered via the CREATE command, the DBASE III
command APPEND FROM SIMIBM.IDX DELIMITED loads the database.
The full power of DBASE III is now available for searching through the
MSDOS archives on SIMTEL20.
Many thanks to Larry Armijo <COLSA@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL> for this
information on dBASEIII.
--Keith Petersen
Maintainer of the CP/M and MSDOS archives at SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL [26.0.0.74]
Arpa: W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL
Uucp: {att,decwrl,harvard,ucbvax,uunet,uw-beaver}!simtel20.army.mil!w8sdzRCONN@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (Rick Conn) (09/16/88)
Keith, I also tried it under ALPHA3 at the office. ALPHA3 is a dBASE III clone, and it worked perfectly there as well. Thanks for the data. Rick -------