Documentation for WILD.COM
a public domain program by Charles Lazo III
WILD is a program that you can use to run other programs or DOS commands
and also supply them with wild card parameters even though the commands
do not support them. There is also a degree of serendipity involved in
the use of WILD; I shall explain some of it--you may find more.
Assuming that PROG.EXE is a program that can run under DOS, then the
command
WILD PROG *.*
entered at the DOS prompt will run the program PROG once for each file
which is in the current directory. For example, if these three files
GOODMORN.AM
GOODNIGH.PM
ASLEEP.NOW
were the only files in the current directory and the programs WILD.COM
and PROG.EXE were in one of the directories given in the your PATH
environment variable, then entering WILD PROG *.* at the DOS prompt
would automate the process of entering these three lines in succession
at the DOS prompt
PROG GOODMORN.AM
PROG GOODNIGH.PM
PROG ASLEEP.NOW
Of course any combination of wild cards that cause matches with files
in the current directory can be used with WILD. Examples are:
WILD PROG GO*.??
WILD TYPE *.TXT
WILD DEL *.* (caution: no warning!)
Can you guess what would happen if you were to enter
WILD *.*
at the prompt? Well, so you don't have to risk this yourself I'll tell
you. WILD will treat each file in your current directory as a program
(or batch file) and attempt to run it! (An example of serendipity.)
Also WILD is on the lookout for the presence of the environment variable
WILD. The settings for this variable that affect the operation of WILD
are
QUERY causes WILD to prompt you with
"(Y/N/A)?" for each matching file.
That is, Yes (run the program with
the file given), No (do not run
the program with the file given),
and Abort (stop and return to DOS).
NOEXT causes WILD to leave out file
extensions when using filenames
from the current directory.
H Allows matches to be made with
hidden files in addition to others.
S Allows matches to be made with
system files in addition to others.
D Allows matches to be made with
directory files in addition to
others.
To set the WILD environment variable enter at the DOS prompt, for
example (capitalization is not significant),
set wild=query h d
And then when you run WILD it will prompt you concerning the running
of the given command with each filename in the current directory that
is either an ordinary file, a hidden file, or a directory file.
It matters not how these values appear in the WILD environment variable.
E.g., all of these will have the same effect on the operation of WILD:
set wild= QUERY noext H S d
SET WILD=QueryNoextHsD
set WILD= query, noext, h, s, d
Finally, you can use input/output redirection and piping with WILD.
Assuming that there are no bugs remaining in this program (possible,
but I think doubtful considering the many bugs which I found and
eliminated), there is still the possibility that you may obtain results
which are unexpected (when that's good, then it's serendipity, when bad
it's ouch!), so be CAREFUL. One thing that I have thought of that may
lead to strange results when using WILD with some programs is that WILD
passes its FCB's to the program it EXECs and that may not be what the
program which you are running expects. So my advice is to use only
files which are backuped when trying anything new with WILD.
I really have no idea of the kind of appeal that this program will have
or what you may think would be nice features for a possible update, so
don't hesitate to let me know if you like or dislike the program.
I think I have made it fairly clear that you can get yourself into
trouble with WILD so I make no guarantee of its efficacy for any purpose
and take no responsibility for your use of it.
I can be reached on CompuServe via User ID 72210,17 or via US Snail at
Charles Lazo III
P.O. Box 452
Hohenwald, TN 38462
