ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ QZC.EXE ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ Quick ZIP File Comment Utility Tom Kellen í áETATech í ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ PURPOSE: To quickly change, add or strip the file comment from ZIP files and to optionally reset the date of the ZIP to either today's date, the date of the latest member file within the ZIP or to retain the original date. INTRODUCTION: Being a BBS sysop is often a thankless and frustrating job. I was being frustrated by having to use several different utilities to change the ZIP comment on files uploaded to me and to reset the date of the ZIPs. These many utilities accomplished the job but each was lacking something. Finally I was frustrated enough to write QZC.EXE. QZC will rapidly add a comment to any ZIP file (SFX self extracting files too) and can also reset the date of the ZIP file. Optionally it can also be used to strip unwanted ZIP comments. Several of the advantages of using QZC are that it is very fast and will NOT disturb -AV stamps on ZIP files. INSTALLATION: QZC should be placed into a subdirectory that is somewhere on your path for maximum flexibility. You can configure how QZC operates by placing QZC.CFG, an ASCII text configuration file in the same directory with QZC.EXE. The configuration file is optional and QZC can either be run with defaults or over ridden by command line parameters. OPERATION: QZC runs with two defaults. The first is where it looks for the text file containing the comment you wish to add to your ZIPs. By default it looks for a file called LOGO in the root of your C: drive (ie. C:\LOGO). The comment file should be created with an ASCII editor and can contain any number of lines as long as it is less than 32K (it is highly recommended that you keep your comments as small as possible). The second default is to reset the date of the ZIP file to the same date and time as the member file with the latest date and time. This gives the truest picture of the date of the content files. The easiest way to configure QZC is to create (or edit the enclosed sample) QZC.CFG file. There are two key words that can be used in the file. The first is COMMENTFILE=. This key word indicates the name and location of the file containing the comment you wish to add to each ZIP. An example might be COMMENTFILE=C:\ZIPS\BBS.AD. This would add the comment found in the file C:\ZIPS\BBS.AD to each ZIP. In the configuration file, any text following a semicolon is considered a comment and ignored. Lines can be commented out in QZC.CFG by starting the line with a semicolon. If you wish QZC to remove ZIP comments and not to add a new one you could put COMMENTFILE=STRIP in your QZC.CFG file. This will cause QZC to act as a comment stripper instead of a file commenter. The second key word is ZIPDATE=. There are three key words that can be used following the = sign. ZIPDATE=ORIGINAL will comment the ZIP (or strip the comment) while retaining the original file date and time. ZIPDATE=CURRENT will change the date and time of the ZIP to the current date and time. ZIPDATE=LATEST will scan all the member files to determine the latest date and time of those files and then set the ZIP to that latest date. By default, QZC will look for QZC.CFG in the same directory as QZC.EXE resides in. If you wish to use different configurations, you can create different .CFG files and then use the command line parameter /CFG= to force QZC to use an alternate configuration file. For example, QZC /CFG=C:\ZIPS\QZC2.CFG will use the configuration parameters found in C:\ZIPS\QZC2.CFG. This should afford the user quite a bit of flexibility in operation as each configuration file can specify different comment files too. Using /S on the command line will force QZC to strip the comments from the specified files. Command line parameters always override the commands found in a .CFG file. /C will force QZC to set the ZIP date to the current date and time. /O will retain the original date and time found on the ZIP file. /L will set the date and time to match that of the latest file member contained within the ZIP. If QZC encounters any problems in commenting or setting the date and time of a file, it will show this on the screen and will also create a file called QZC.LOG in the directory where QZC.EXE resides. This log file will contain the date and file name of the file QZC had trouble with. QZC can be used on one file or many. If you don't specify a file name on the command line, QZC will assume that you wish to comment *.ZIP. For example, you could issue the command QZC T*.ZIP to comment all the files beginning with T and ending in .ZIP, or QZC *.exe to comment all your self extracting ZIP files. If a file is not in ZIP format, QZC will report the error and continue on. EPILOGUE: Hopefully users and BBS SysOp's alike will find this utility useful. It is distributed under the Shareware concept, where you get to try it out before you buy. The cost for QZC is $2.00 US. This seems to be a minimal but reasonable fee for this program. If you don't feel it is worth that amount, please let me know what features I could add to enhance it. If you find that QZC is not what you need, just delete it and move on, you've lost nothing. Registering QZC will give you the warm fuzzy feeling that you've done the right thing and that you've helped to continue the great concept of Shareware. Please register any software that you use to encourage the authors to continue. QZC is not crippled in ANY way and there is no "registered" version. Registered QZC will be informed of new áETATech utility programs and will possibly receive price breaks in registering them. AUTHOR CONTACT: Problems, solutions, kudos and ideas are welcomed. I can be reached at the following: By mail: áETATech P. O. Box 566742 Atlanta, GA 31156-6013 Electronically: The Right Place BBS 404/476-2607 9,600 Baud HST Solid Rock BBS 909/785-9176 1200-38400 USR DS I can also be contacted via the RIME network's SHAREWARE, SPITFIRE BBS, SCUBA and TURBO PASCAL conferences. DISCLAIMER: Use of this program acknowledges this disclaimer of warranty: "This program is supplied as is. áETATech Computer Consulting disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness of this program for any purpose. áETATech Computer Consulting assumes no liability for damages direct or consequential, which may result from the use of this program." ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: My grateful thanks to John Newlin, author of ArcMaster and ArcMaster For Windows for his assistance in working with compressed files. John has been of invaluable assistance in all my programming endeavors and is a wonderful mentor. REVISION HISTORY: 17-JAN-1993 v1.0 Initial Release.