4dizzy 0.96á help file

The program 4dizzy is copyright (c) Olli M„nnist” 1995, 1996

Index:
        DESCRIPTION
        CONFIGURATION
        COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS
        SERIAL FILES
        FILTERING
        DOS CONSIDERATIONS
        OS2 CONSIDERATIONS
        REGISTRATION
        LEGAL STUFF
        AUTHOR
        HISTORY
        UPDATES


DESCRIPTION

4dizzy is an utility for importing information from file_id.diz files found
in most distributed archives into 4dos/4os2 file descriptions -
Due to the 511byte-limit in description, only first 12 lines are used.
4dos/4os2 stores the description info into a hidden file descript.ion, so you
may remove any descriptions simply by deleting this file.

4dizzy.exe is the dos-executable, 4dizzy2.exe is the OS/2 executable.

4dizzy will process user-defined archives, while any descriptions for
any files are preserved. 4dizzy will put a marker description for
new archive-files it cannot find a file_id.diz-file for -
Any previously processed files are ignored by default.


CONFIGURATION
You should put line
Descriptionmax  =       511
into your 4dos.ini/4os2.ini file, making it possible to use 511 character
descriptions.

4dizzy.ini or 4dizzy2.ini is used to store information about extraction
programs 4dizzy is to use, eg. unzip.exe. It must reside in the same
directory with 4dizzy executable.
4dizzy currently supports 16 different archive programs, which should be
enough for anyone..

The format is
executable name, file extension, parameter 1, parameter 2, parameter 3
All options are separated by spaces, make sure there are no trailing 
spaces or extra spaces between options.

Parameters are optional, and are intended for 'shut up' options such
as -qq in unzip.exe and for a possible 'extract' command in some archivers,
or whatever else is approciate.

4dizzy invokes the executable with
<executable> <param1> <param2> <param3> <archivename> <file_id.diz>
if your program cannot handle this format, too bad. 

Example 4dizzy.ini-file:
UNZIP.EXE ZIP -qq -C
RAR.EXE RAR e -c-

If you omit path, 4dizzy will look for the file along the path.
4dizzy will include full path info with the executable name so there's no 
performance penalty with this method.

Make sure dos can't see the OS/2 version of unzip and
vice versa.


4dizzy/2 has been tested and should work with:

OS/2 Warp, OS/2 Warp Connect and OS/2 Merlin
Any version of OS/2 since 2.0 should be able to run 4dizzy/2.


4dizzy/D has been tested and should work with:

OS/2 Warp, OS/2 Warp Connect and OS/2 Merlin
(in VDM)
PC-dos 7.0
Ms-dos 6.22

Operation under Microsoft Windows'95 (tm) has not been tested and any
attempt to run 4dizzy/D from Microsoft Windows'95 (tm) could cause
unpredictable results.


COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS
Usage: 4DIZZY.EXE [-h|-?] [-afnilt]
h, ?   Online help.
a      process All - No checking for serial files.
f      Filter - Filters lines without n number of alphabetical characters
n      [1-9] - Required min. number of alphabetical characters. Default: 4
i      Ignore - Ignores existing descriptions, deleting them.
l      include Last - Full file_id.diz for first and last file in series.
t      Touch - Sets date from file_id.diz for the archive file.

example: 4dizzy -tfi6


SERIAL FILES
4dizzy has a capability to detect whether an archive is a part of series -
So, if you've got files koolmpg1.zip->koolmpg9.zip, 4dizzy will use
one-line description for the last 8 files and use full description for the
first file in series only.
This feature is not too useful without alphabetically sorted directories,
so you ought to use parameter /ON with dir. NB, current 4dos version seems
to show alphabetically sorted dir-list by default.
HPFS maintains files sorted by default.
                       
This feature *should* work with practically unlimited amount of parts long as
the ordering is numerical. This means Kitty_Yung.mpg.[0-1000].zip should give
full description only for the first packet.

Alphabetical serialization has limited support, eg. Z->AA transition
is not recognized.

You may optionally use full description for both first and last file in
series.


FILTERING
4Dizzy can optionally filter out lines from file_id.diz which do not
contain enough alphanumerical characters - This is meant to weed out the
cute ascii-art logos found in many file_id.diz files.

By default this feature filters out lines without at least 4 characters.


DOS CONSIDERATIONS
4Dizzy now uses straightforward memory allocation routine, so you need
at least as much free *base* memory as the finished descript.ion file, plus
about 64kB for various buffers.

In practice you should be able to handle 1000+ files in worst-case scenario
with 600kB free base memory, so I can't see anyone running out of memory
anyway. In any case, 4dizzy reports the amount of free memory after execution
so you can tell if you're going to run out. As executables need some RAM
to run (unzip.exe will run on <64k) 4dizzy should not crash on low memory
situation as there will not be any more new file_di.diz files to store..

You should use a disk-caching program with write-cache capability as this
will speed up 4dizzy file processing tremendously.

Note that while unzip386 claims to be faster than the real-mode version,
for purposes of 4dizzy it is actually about 20% slower than normal
unzip.

Pkunzip may be used instead of unzip and there is no practical performance
difference between them, but pkunzip insists on showing zipfile comments,
which looks messy in my opinion.


OS/2 CONSIDERATIONS
Since HPFS reserves by default more screen-estate for file information, no
descriptions are shown -
With /Z parameter dir will show descriptions, while truncating any long
filenames into 13 characters.
Same goes for CD-ROM's.

example:DIR /ZON

4dizzy/2 supports long filenames on HPFS partitions.

The amount of files 4dizzy/2 can process is limited only by the amount of
memory provided by OS/2 ie. enough.

4dizzy/2 might work with ext2ifs driver on linux partitions, but I have
not had the chance to personally verify this.


REGISTRATION
4dizzy is cardware.

I would appreciate it if you would send me a postcard if you find 4dizzy
useful. Send a dirty postcard if you can get one.


LEGAL STUFF
4dizzy is provided *as is*, author takes no responsibility whatsoever about
any damage 4dizzy might cause, even if used according to instructions. You
use it at your own risk.

The author retains copyright to the 4dizzy program, so you may not legally
use it for commercial purposes without permission.
Otherwise, you may use 4dizzy however you'd like and copy it around as much
as you'd like, as long as the 4dizzy.txt file is included with the copy.

Source is available on request - BC++ 3.1 for 4dizzy/D, watcom for 4dizzy/2.
You may modify and re-distribute 4dizzy as long as you give me credit for
sources and do not sell 4dizzy for profit.
4Dizzy/2 is a straight port of 4Dizzy/D, using standard C library functions
instead of OS/2 API calls.


AUTHOR
4dizzy is written by Olli M„nnist”, currently of the Espoo-Vantaa Institute
of Technology - You can contact me at ollittm@evitech.fi until 1999 at least.

READ THIS FILE COMPLETELY BEFORE CONTACTING ME!
I have many cheap insults reserved for people asking about things explained
in this document.

I am not currently interested in adding any new features into 4dizzy,
unless you can make it worth my while.

Any bugs will be fixed as time permits and you may naturally tell me what
a great app 4dizzy is ;-)

Postcards can be sent to:
Olli M„nnist”
Kirjanpit„j„nkuja 4 A11
02770 Espoo
Finland


HISTORY
4dizzy 1.00 is a complete rewrite, using no code from version 0.42.

New since 0.42
OS/2 version

4dizzy.ini/4dizzy2.ini - You can define what file extensions and
(de)compression apps you want to use.

Filtering - You can specify how many alphanumerical characters a file_id.diz
line must contain to be included in description.

Serialization - 4dizzy now attempts to recognize multi-part archives
and will use full file_id.diz only for the first file.

Touch - 4dizzy can optionally set archive date/time from file_id.diz date.

Any existing descriptions for any files are preserved.

Optionally ignores old description-file.

New command-line parameter format.

Some features have been fixed - Failed sometimes to to kill file_id.diz,
would not always extract file_id.diz, etc..

0.51á
[NEW] Touch implemented
0.52á
[FIX] If descript.ion file did not exist, 4dizzy would not work.
[FIX] Exit-on-error did not work as intended.
0.9á
[NEW] Serialization implemented
0.91á
[NEW] Implemented l-switch for including full description for last file in
      series, also.
0.92á
[FIX] Several memory allocation problems fixed.
[FIX] l-switch did not work for last file in directory.
0.93á
[FIX] Multiple memory allocation problems fixed.
[NEW] OS/2 executable (watcom)
0.94á - First public beta
[NEW] 4dizzy/D should now be able to handle extensions shorter than 3
      characters
[NEW] You can now define 16 files in the ini-file, with 3 separate
      parameters, max parameter-lenght increased to 9 chars.
[FIX] -i parameter could cause problems.
0.95á
[NEW] Implemented filtering
0.96á
[CHN] All spaces in file_id.diz are now converted into ascii 255, so no
      wordwrap will occur and I can use 40chr/line format for description.
      This feature was in 4dizzy 0.42 but was missing from 0.50->0.95

Unless there are any bugs in this version, I will release it as 4dizzy 1.0
in near future.


UPDATES
You will find latest version of 4dizzy from ftp.cdrom.com /pub/os2/diskutil
or hobbes.nmsu.edu /os2/diskutil.

Planned features:
Quiet-feature for 4dizzy2 by detaching the child-processes.
Multi-threaded version of 4dizzy2 for improved speed.