UPDATE.DOC, ARJ 2.50 October 1995
This documents new or updated information since ARJ 2.41.
** IMPORTANT NEWS ****************************************************
THIS VERSION OF ARJ IS AN OFFICIAL RELEASE.
The mailing address of ARJ Software has changed as of August 1993.
ARJ Software
Robert and Susan Jung
P.O. Box 249
Norwood MA 02062
USA
FAX: 617-769-4893
There is ARJ Internet mailing list and WEB site support
information added to the file ARJ.DOC.
Beginning with this version of ARJ, full functionality of certain
ARJ software features will NOT be available in the shareware
versions of ARJ (registered or not). These features include the
multiple volume self-extractor, the ARJSFX embedded command line
feature, and the inhibit display messages option. The full
featured versions will ONLY be available from ARJ Software and
its agents. Registered ARJ users can upgrade to this version for
a small shipping/handling fee ($5).
See ARJDISP.DOC for information about a new feature for software
distributors using ARJ.
Check the WHATSNEW.DOC file for changes since ARJ 2.41a.
The new multiple volume self-extraction function is LIMITED in the
ARJ shareware version. Only volumes of 360K or less in size can be
created AND only such volumes will be processed by the
self-extractor. This feature is accessed through the "-je" option
along with the "-v" option.
The ARJ Security envelope scheme in 2.50 is the SAME as in 2.41.
In other words, ARJ-SECURE 2.50 is compatible with 2.41. There is
no change in the envelope key files. However, the 2.50 version
of this ARJ-SECURE is able to make an archive and "seal" it with
the same command line. ARJ-SECURE users can upgrade to this
version for a small shipping/handling fee ($5).
ARJ can archive up to 32,000 files at one time when the new "-hm"
option is specified. This option enables ARJ to use disk space
instead of memory space to manage the names of the files being
archived.
Please note that older versions of ARJ.EXE will NOT process the
new multiple volume self-extractor. An error message will be
displayed.
A new option "-w" sets the ARJSFX module to skip the "Continue
extraction?" message. This is a change from the former method to
inhibit the message.
The extraction messages of the large ARJSFX module have been
shortened in default mode. A new "-k" option will display the
long form of the messages.
It is now possible for registered ARJ users to control whether
the ARJSFX module will display the overwrite, create directory,
and continue extraction prompts without requiring command line
options. It is also possible to control the ARJSFXJR overwrite
behavior.
A diskette change test will detect the failure to swap diskettes.
This can cause a problem for those who put more than one volume
per diskette. However, this diskette change test is limited to
three retries, so ARJ will eventually accept the non-change of
diskette. The user can inhibit this change test with the new
"-vi" option.
Whenever archiving to diskettes, it is HIGHLY recommended that the
option "-jt" be used. This helps spot BAD diskettes or BAD
diskette drives. It is HIGHLY recommended that the "-jt" option
be used in a Windows or multi-tasking or network environment.
UNERASE or UNDELETE commands do not always recover a file
correctly. This will result in damaged archives. This is true
for all archive types. You should always test an archive after
unerasing it.
If you use the software disk cache, HYPERDISK, see the KNOWN ARJ
ISSUES section in ARJ.DOC for important information.
CAUTION: To those who use the -t1 and/or -t1g options to save a few
extra bytes. This option should only be used on TEXT FILES. Those
are files created by EDLIN, EDIT, QEDIT, BRIEF, NOTEPAD, and
others. Text files typically contain only letters, numbers,
spaces, and punctuation marks. WORD PROCESSOR format files ARE NOT
TEXT FILES! MS WORD, Wordperfect, AMIPRO, WRITE, and similar files
ARE NOT TEXT FILES. Using the -t1 or -t1g on any other kind of file
probably will result in DATA LOSS!
**********************************************************************
USER PROMPTS
The ARJ user prompts have been improved to provide more
flexibility. In addition to the normal yes and no responses, ARJ
also accepts the following responses: quit, always, skip, global,
and command.
"Global" sets ARJ to inhibit all subsequent user prompts by assuming
YES for all queries as if "-y" were specified.
The "Always" response has changed. It now sets ARJ to assume YES
for subsequent queries of the same class. For example, answering
YES to the overwrite query will assume YES for ALL subsequent
overwrite queries.
"Skip" sets ARJ to assume NO for ALL subsequent queries of the same
class.
Subsequent user prompt messages will still be output to the screen
after the "always" and "skip" responses but no user response will be
accepted.
"Command" prompts for one DOS command and then executes it. ARJ
then returns to expect an answer to the current yes/no query. You
should keep the query in mind as ARJ does NOT always redisplay
the full query message.
ARJ ERROR LEVELS
ARJ will now return a DOS errorlevel of 9 when trying to process a
file that is NOT an ARJ archive.
With the new option "-hl", ARJ will return a non-zero errorlevel
when a user specified filename from within an ARJ listfile cannot
be found on disk. Ordinarily, ARJ returns no error for such a
situation.
ARJ ARCHIVE NAME WILDCARDING
ARJ allows the wildcarding of the archive parameter for ARJ
commands other than the add commands (a, f, j, m, u). If the "-r"
option is specified, ARJ will scan through subdirectories looking
for ARJ archives to process.
This feature allows a user to delete a specific file from a series
of archives.
Example: ARJ d *.ARJ bbs.ad
This feature could also be used to extract a series of archives.
Example: ARJ e *.ARJ
The new "-hr" option allows ARJ to process multiple archives that
cause errors.
ARJ COMMAND LINE PROCESSING
For non-add type commands, ARJ will now always use the full
specified pathname for selecting files within an archive by
matching against the full specified pathname.
Example: ARJ x archive d:\temp\ f:\data\1994\report.txt
ARJ will now accept an ARJ command line from a response file as in
"ARJ @command.rsp". The "@" symbol indicates that the appended
name is the name of the response file. In this case, the file is
command.rsp. The response file symbol cannot be changed.
The response file should contain the ARJ command line minus the
initial "ARJ". The command line may be split over as many lines
as necessary. The response file feature will NOT accept QUOTED
command line options. Options with embedded blanks ("-vasTEST X")
will not be processed as expected. When using the response file
feature, ARJ will accept only the "-+", and "-&" switch options on
the DOS command line along with the response file name. All other
command options must be specified in the response file or in the
ARJ environment variable.
ARJSFX COMMAND LINE PROCESSING
All of the ARJ self-extractors feature a new option to embed any
command line options into the self-extracting archive itself. This
helps reduce the need for extra programs or batch files.
To implement this feature, you would insert the required command
line as the first line of the ARJ archive comment. The beginning
of the command line must be preceded by the two characters "))".
Only the first 80 characters of the embedded command line will
be processed.
Example: )) C:\DIR\ -o -m
The non-shareware version of this software will not display the
customized command line demonstration message.
The larger ARJ self-extractor (-je) supports the new command line
option "-s" to allow the skipping of the ARJ-SECURITY envelope
verification test if an envelope exists. ARJSFX also supports the
new "-o" option to force overwrites, the "-m" option to skip the
create directory prompt, and the "-w" option to skip the extract
prompt. The new "-b" option prompts the user for the name of the
install directory. The target directory on the command line is
used as the default install directory. A new "-k" option will
display the long form of the file extraction messages.
ARJSFXJR COMMAND LINE PROCESSING
The small ARJ self-extractor (-je1) supports command line
options.
ARJSFXJR [-switch(es)] [drive:][target_dir\]
switches:
n: set ARJSFXJR to NOT count as an error the skipping of files
o: set ARJSFXJR to overwrite existing files
You can specify a target_directory or drive or both. However,
you must specify the ending "\" or ":" symbol.
ARJSFXJR -o C:\SOFT\ -> self-extract into directory "C:\SOFT\"
in overwrite mode.
ARJ COMMANDS
"d" command
*** The following information was left out of ARJ.DOC at 2.41 ***
If specify "*.*" as the filespec, ARJ will prompt for permission to
delete. You can specify the "-y" or "-jyd" options to inhibit the
delete prompt.
If ARJ removes all files from an archive, it will delete the empty
archive.
The delete command normally only deletes non-backup files. You
must specify the "-jg" option to select backup files, too.
You can specify the "-n" (new) option to delete the files in the
archive that DO NOT EXIST on the disk. You can use the same "-n"
option with "ARJ l" to list the files that DO NOT EXIST on the
disk. This is useful in synchronising an archive to a directory.
Examples: ARJ d archive *.* -n
ARJ l archive temp\ *.doc -n
ARJ d archive temp\ *.doc -n
"f" and "u" commands
As of 2.42c, when updating archives with the -jv option selected,
ARJ will display a message for each file processed including
files that have not been updated. A message indicating that
there has been "no change" will be displayed when no actual
update of a file took place.
ARJ SWITCHES
"-b4" switch
The "-b4" switch is used to set ARJ to NOT restore any file
attribute bits and to reset the archive bit of files being
extracted. It is useful for easing the cleanup/deletion of
temporarily extracted archive files as in a virus scanning process.
"-b5" switch
This switch used with the "e" or "x" commands sets ARJ to not
restore any of the original file attributes bits. However, the
archive bit will be left set.
"-f1" switch
This switch used with the "e" or "x" commands sets ARJ to only
extract OLDER files from the archive.
"-u1" switch
This switch used with the "e" and "x" commands causes ARJ to
extract OLDER and non-existing files.
"-u2" switch
This switch used with the "e" and "x" commands causes ARJ to
extract CHANGED (different date-time or different size) and
non-existing files.
"-v" switch
When the multiple volume ARJ files to be used are located on drives
with removable media (diskette drives, etc.), ARJ will ALWAYS
PROMPT for the next diskette even with the "-y" option specified.
However, you can suppress the next volume prompt with the "-jyv"
option. At DOS versions before 3.0, only drives A and B are
considered removable.
After the pause to change diskettes, ARJ will check to make sure
that the diskette has been changed. However, this check is limited
to 3 retries for the same volume. This test can be inhibited with
the "i" modifier.
Example: ARJ x a:archive -vi
ARJ will not allow the updating of multiple volume archives unless
the "-hu" option is specified.
The "r" modifier allows the reservation of disk space on the first
volume. The number after the "r" specifies the space to reserve.
This is useful for software installation volumes built on the hard
disk.
Example: ARJ a install -v360r50K make first volume 50000 bytes
smaller than 360K.
Example: ARJ u archive -v360u
The "z" modifier works like the "s" modifier except that the system
command is NOT echoed to the screen.
The "-v" switch now accepts its modifiers in any order. The "s"
and "z" modifiers must be last because any succeeding text is
considered the system command to execute.
Examples: ARJ a volume -vavw beep, autosize, whole files
ARJ a volume -vavsDIR beep, autosize, execute DIR
"-je" switch
This switch will create a multiple volume self-extracting archive
when used with the "-v" switch. This option combination requires
DOS 3.0 and above.
Example: ARJ a a:install c:\software\*.* -je -va
"-jf" switch
It is now possible to extract a file stored with an absolute path
to another directory from an archive containing similar paths
differentiated only by drive letters.
Example: ARJ x archive d:\temp f:\data\1994\report.*
"-js" switch
The "-js" switch will recognize "." alone as a file extension
indicating no file extension as in "-js." and "-js..arc"
"-jv" switch
The "-jv switch will display a "no change" message when updating
an archive with files that are already up to date.
"-h#" switch
The "-h#" switch sets ARJ to append the current date string in
the form YYMMDD to the current archive name while keeping the
file extension the same.
The "-h#1" switch sets ARJ to append the current time string in
the form HHMMSS to the current archive name while keeping the
file extension the same.
The "-h#2" switch sets ARJ to append the current date-time
string in the form DHHMMSS to the current archive name while
keeping the file extension the same.
Examples: ARJ a XX -h# *.c creates archive name XX931209.ARJ
ARJ a YY -h#1 creates archive name YY123000.ARJ
ARJ a Y -h#2 creates archive name Y8123000.ARJ
This function does NO checking for exceeding the proper filename
length.
"-hm" switch
The "-hm" switch sets ARJ to transfer the list of filenames to be
archived from precious memory to file storage. This allows a much
larger number of files to be processed (over 32,000). This option
is ignored for all ARJ commands except "a", "f", "j", "m", "u".
Normally, this switch sets ARJ to wait until it is out of memory
storing filenames into a list before transferring that list to a
temporary file. That temporary file is put in the current
directory or the special work directory if specified (-hm!F:\).
However, there may be a few cases where ARJ will run out of memory
doing other tasks while it is storing this list. In these cases,
ARJ will abort. The user can specify a numeric argument to this
switch to force ARJ to transfer the list to file storage sooner.
This argument specifies the maximum number of filename entries to
store in memory. If the list exceeds that number, the entries are
transferred from memory to a temporary file.
The "-hm" work directory is specified by appending a "!" to the
"-hm" or "-hm5000" options and then appending the filename to the
option. See below.
Examples: ARJ a archive c:\*.* -r -hm
ARJ a a:archive c:\*.* -r -va -hm5000!F:\
ARJ a a:archive c:\*.* -r -hm!G:\temp\
This feature has at least two disadvantages. The checking for
duplicate filename specifications may become disabled (ex: *.DOC
and MANUAL.* duplicates MANUAL.DOC). Updating archives will become
slower. Extra disk space is required for the temporary file list.
The use of a RAMDISK directory will provide the fastest operation.
"-hn" switch
The "-hn" switch sets the filespec that does NOT match any file.
The default filespec is "...". However, on some systems like
NOVELL, there is a valid filespec "...". Since ARJ sometimes needs
a filespec that is strictly a placeholder, this option should be
used to specify some name that does not exist on disk.
This option must be specified prior to any use of the non-matching
filespec. Setting it via the ARJ_SW variable is an excellent
choice.
Example: ARJ e -hn#### archive #### -zcomment.txt
SET ARJ_SW=-hn####
"-ho" switch
The "-ho" switch used with the "e" or "x" extract commands allows
file extraction based upon a text search. ARJ will prompt the
user for text strings to search unless the "-jq" option has been
specified. See the "-jq" option in ARJ.DOC for detailed use
information. ARJ will extract a file within an archive if the
file contains at least one occurrence of any of the specified
search strings.
Examples: ARJ e archive -ho
ARJ e archive -ho -jq+3+textstring
"-ho1" switch
The "-ho1" switch used with the "e" or "x" extract commands allows
file extraction based upon a text search. ARJ will prompt the
user for text strings to search unless the "-jq" option has been
specified. See the "-jq" option in ARJ.DOC for detailed use
information. ARJ will extract a file within an archive if the
file contain NO occurrences of any of the specified search
strings.
Examples: ARJ e archive -ho1
"-hr" switch
The "-hr" switch sets ARJ to attempt to continue processing
successive archives even when they contains errors. This option is
intended for ARJ wildcard use such as in the "ARJ t *.ARJ -hr"
command.
"-hv" switch
The "-hv" switch is used to verify the ARJ version number and/or
whether the ARJ program is registered. If the "-hv" option is
specified by itself or with an appended "R", an unregistered ARJ
will abort with an errorlevel of 1. If a version number string
is appended to the "-hv" option, a lower version numbered ARJ
will abort with with an errorlevel of 1.
Examples: ARJ a archive -hv check if registered
ARJ a archive -hvr check if registered
ARJ a archive -hv2.50 check for version 2.50 or greater
ARJ a archive -hvr2.50 check if registered and version
2.50 or greater
end document
