How To Use The File Chopper

Splitting a file

Let's say we want to copy the file C:\Tmp\Program.exe of about 5 MB from one computer, say A, to D:\Album on another computer, say B.

Start the program on the first computer, A, and click at the first button, see figure. A dialog box pops up which you use to locate and choose the file (C:\Tmp\Program.exe). When this is done, both the name and the size of the file is shown in The Big File's frame, see figure.

Now you have to decide where to put the smaller files, before you could transfer them to the other computer. You can already see a suggestion in The Smaller Files' frame; the first time the program suggests the directory for the program, but later on it suggests the last directory used (here D:\ScreenSaver). As you see, the names of the smaller files are the same as the big one's, except that .Chopped_1, .Chopped_2 and so on are added at the end of the name. Furthermore, the program suggests splitting the big file into four smaller files of the sizes indicated under Individual Sizes (B). You may now use the third button to split the file, and then, for example, use the Explorer to copy the smaller files, that is, Program.exe.Chopped_1, ... , Program.exe.Chopped_4 from D:\ScreenSaver to floppies.

However, here we'll show how to create the smaller files directly onto floppies. Insert a floppy and click the second button to locate and choose the floppy disk drive. When this is done, the new names for the smaller files appear in The Smaller Files' frame. You may use the same file sizes as shown above, but when we now are ready to insert the floppies, it's wiser to choose Use free disk space, see below. Then the program will check how much free space is available on each floppy, before it decides how big each smaller file should be. Therefore non-empty and partly corrupted floppies may very well be used.

Now it's time to let the program do the real work. Just click the third button and insert the floppies one by one when the program asks for them. Before exiting the program, you have to choose between two alternatives for the restoring of the big file. Either you'll use this program on the other computer too, then it's time to exit now; or you'll go for the self-uniting batch file on the other computer. In the latter case, you'll have to create this file now, by clicking the fourth button (default file name: SelfUnit.bat). This file will normally fit on the last floppy.

Restoring a file

Restoring using the self-uniting file

You are now ready to bring the floppies to the other computer. The restoring depends on whether you chose to use the program or the self-uniting file:

Start with copying all floppies including the self-uniting file to D:\Album on the other computer B. Next, run the self-uniting file, by, for example, locating it using the Explorer and then double clicking on it. A DOS-window will now open, see below, and after hitting any key the restoring will take place.

Restoring using The File Chopper

Start the program on computer B. Insert the first floppy and click the fifth button. Choose the first smaller file on the floppy; then the program asks you how many floppies you have. Next, it's time to decide where to restore the original (Big) file. Use the sixth button to locate and choose the directory D:\Album. Finally, start the restoring by clicking the seventh button and insert the floppies one by one when the program asks for them.

Note! Because the smaller files are on floppies, the program can't know how big these files are before you have entered the floppies. Therefore, the Individual Sizes (B) are marked with question marks before the restoring.

More advanced features of the program

You may very well choose to put the smaller files on the hard disk before you copy them onto floppies. This will greatly reduce the time for the splitting, but you lose the time when you do the copying instead. Actually, you might not even use floppies at all. For instance, if both computers are connected to Internet, why not send the smaller files by e-mail? In that case, the smaller files should perhaps be smaller than 1MB, so that they are both easy to send and download.

You may choose file sizes from a list of predefined sizes, by clicking at Base Size, see below. The most common removable disks are listed there.

What's more, the list is fully editable. Both the names in the list and their related sizes in bytes, may be added, modified and removed by clicking at the Modify Base Sizes button. In this case, a window like the one below pops up, where these changes may be done. In this case, we have added the new base size with the description My Own Disk with the related size of 2 500 000 bytes. This base size has popped up and been used in the list above.

If this is not enough, you may also specify each individual smaller file's size, by clicking at the sizes and enter new values to the right, see below. The sizes below the changed one are modified if necessary by the program. Normally, the last size changes but also the number of smaller files might be modified.

Notice also that there is a pause button, the eight one from the left. During the splitting/restoring, this button is the only one that may be clicked. The program will then pause and ask if you would like to go on or stop the work. CAUTION! If you decide to stop the work, the partial result that will be left from the program is not a final correct result and should not be used to anything (except to be thrown in the wastebasket).

Switches to control the program

To control and pass information to the program already at the start, the program recognizes the following seven switches:

/bigfile=[drive:\path\filename]
/smallfiles=[drive:\path\filename]
/selfunitfile=[drive:\path\filename]
/basesize=[base size entry number]
/split
/minimize
/exit

The first two may be used instead of the first two buttons. To choose a base size, enter a number indicating which entry it has in the base size list (1 means the first, normally 720 kB, 2 means the second, normally 1.44 MB, and so on). To make the program start splitting directly, use the /split switch. If also /minimize and/or /exit are used, the program will run minimized and/or exit when finished. Using /selfunitfile will create a self uniting batch file after splitting. The names of the switches are not case sensitive (for example: /split, /Split, and /SPLIT are all valid switch names).

Example: Starting the program (supposing it is located at C:\Prog\TheFileChopper) with

C:\Prog\TheFileChopper /BigFile=D:\Tmp\Data.z /SelfUnitFile=D:\Tmp\Restore.bat /BaseSize=2 /Split

will split Data.z at D:\Tmp to the default name and place for the smaller files, using the second base size (normally 1.44 MB), and finally, create a self uniting batch file with the name Restore.bat. Because /Split is used, the program starts splitting directly. If /minimize also was used, the program would be run in a minimized window and if /exit was added, the program would exit after the splitting was finished. If /BaseSize had been excluded, the default value would have been choosen.

Now to the menu alternatives

The first menu alternative, the File menu:

represents alternatives to the first seven buttons. It also gives you the possibility to force the program to forget all previous uses of the program by exiting with Exit and reset default settings: The program stores your old directory locations for the big and the smaller files, any changes to the Base Sizes, the program window's position on your screen, and some other parameters. This information is then used as default values in the program. By exiting and reset default settings, this information is cleared.

The figure above also shows that there are short cuts to many methods. For example, instead of clicking at the first button (or choosing Select a file to be split), you may use Ctrl+A, that is, holding down the control key (the one marked Ctrl) while you hit the A key once.

The second menu alternative, Pause, gives you the possibility to choose whether or not the program will pause between the smaller files. Normally, this is what you would like when you read from, or write to, removable media (such as floppies), because you then fill up each such medium with one smaller file; but not when you use, for instance, the hard disk. (To speed up the download of this page, I will not show the whole program window each time any more).

Floppies are typically removable media and are usually connected to A: or B:. Other removable media may be SuperDisks, SyQuests and Jaz disks, but the program has no knowledge to what units these might be connected to. Therefore, the program gives you the possibility to choose between the three alternatives shown above.

The third menu, Memory, leads you to a window where you may specify how much memory (RAM) the program is allowed to use. For each smaller file, the program allocates memory the size of the smaller file, but never larger then this maximum value. For instance, if this max value is 100 000 B and the smaller files are all 450 000 B, both the reading and writing of these files are divided in five parts, where the program reads/writes 100 000 B at the time (50 000 B for the last file), using the RAM as temporary storage.

This leads to the idea that this "Max Value" should be as large as possible. However, things are not always as easy as they seem to be. Testings have shown that 100 000 is actually often a good value, at least for files less than, say, 10 MB. For larger files larger values are often better. Notice that if the smaller files are pretty large and if the "Max Value" is that too, you may force the file system to swap part of the memory out to disk, which is certainly not optimal. On the other hand, setting the value very small, will force the system to read/write very small amount of data from/to the disk, each time, which is not very efficient either. Normally, you don't have to manipulate this parameter, but just the possibility to do so, is often a reason as good as anything else. Try it, and it might enhance your feeling for memory allocation and swapping.

Nevertheless, if you have huge files, that is, of many MBs or even GBs, there is a good chance that using several MBs as Max Allowed Memory Usage will enhance the performance. As long as the computer doesn't have to swap (use the hard disk as artifical RAM), the higher value the better. Note that the progress bar only updates after each writing, that is, the more memory that is used the less often is the progress bar updated.

If you, like myself, don't have English as your native language, perhaps you'll find a more suitable language in the next menu alternative. Swedish is not one of the most spoken languages in the world, but guess what my mother tongue is!

If you can't find any other use of it, running the program using an exotic language when someone is looking over you shoulders, might impress on him/her.

The Options menu:

1. The smaller files get the same file name as the big file, except that something is added to the end. This "something" is of the form "ending index", where the latter one is an integer starting from 1 and increase with 1 for each smaller file; the former one is up to you to choose. Default, this is .Chopped_, but it may be set to anything that can be used as part of a file name.
   

   Notice that altering this text might confuse the program that has to restore the big file. For instance, if the big file is named A.exe, then the smaller files are normally named A.exe.Chopped_1, A.exe.Chopped_2, ..., but let's say you change the ending to _Split:. Then the smaller files will get the names A.exe_Split:1, A.exe_Split:2, .... So far, so good. Now you email these files to your friend, that also has this program. He starts the program but it searches for files of the type *.Chopped_*, when the program should look for *_Split:*, and hence, can't find your smaller files. Therefore, if you can't resist changing this value, remember to inform the "Restorer" to use the same ending.

2. After the splitting of a file is done, the program may remove the big file from its location. This goes also for the smaller files after the restoring is finished. You may use none, either one, or both of these alternatives. "None" is default, but notice that using either of the "delete" alternatives will delete the file(s) without any questions. If you use a Self Uniting file, this may delete itself after it has been used. Last, you may have the floppies erased from possible old files before they are used, if you are splitting directly to unit A: or unit B:.

3. As a rather special case, you may choose to extract only a part of the big file to the smaller ones. Notice that this implies that the original file can NOT be restored from the smaller files, but if you are only interested in extracting some part of a file, this may be useful. In the same manner, you may append the smaller files to an already existing file, building up an even larger file. This will also create a big file that does not equal the original one, but in special cases, this might be what you really want.
   

Using the last menu alternative, Help, leads you to one of two windows. The first one is License Information. Here you may read about the license agreements. You can also have this information on a file and launching the Notepad to inspect/print out the file (who could possibly be interested in such a thing, but, any way...).

In this window you'll also find Name and License code. If you decide to pay the US $12 fee for this program, it's in these two textboxes you are supposed to enter the license information you'll get from us.

In this window you will also find two buttons for the registration of the program. Try them to see more, or use the Registration link you'll find in the table of contents to the left.

The second window you may get to from Help is How It Works. Actually, this information is something like the text you are just reading, but more verbal and less pictorial (to be quite honest, no pictures at all).

Either you scroll up and down to read this information, or, you click at the button down the window to have it displayed in Notepad (from where you may write it out or copy it to another editor or word processor).

This is all there is to it. Obviously, you may have questions about the program, so please feel free to send an email. Any suggestions to improve the program are welcome. I can't promise to implement all ideas but several refinements have come from customers (and even non customers).