Network Supervisor's Toolkit

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Network Supervisor's Toolkit / Network Supervisor's Toolkit.iso / btrieve / btfiler / readme.btf < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1996-07-10 | 16.4 KB | 361 lines

BTFILER Installation Instructions/ Last minute notes. All BTFILER files are found in a file called BTFL14.ZIP. You should extract all files from the ZIP file and make sure all files are found on the PATH. Note that the program currently has been tested with variable length files as large as 25000 bytes without unpleasant side effects on a system with 540 K of free memory. The only problem is that less than a full screen of data will appear. An undocumented feature is that while opening a file, the directories specified by the environment variable BTFILEPATH are also searched. If you have any trouble seeing the menus, try resetting the colors (Set Colors under the Options menu). Also, a new file is now sent, CINSTALL.DAT. This will install the standard green screen color set. I ran into some problems with folks having strange screen problems. Very odd stuff. Another troubleshooting tip: If you are having a problem with running BTFILER, Please(!) try loading BTRIEVE.EXE with the /E parameter that causes BTRIEVE not to use extended (or is that expanded?<G>) memory. Many a problem has been eliminated by that advice. Also, if you have some application that runs with Btrieve and BTFILER does not run, try to determine what start-up parameters the working system uses, and load BTRIEVE the exact same way before going into BTFILER. If this software is more than 9 months old, please send you name and mailing address, along with a blank diskette and postage for 2 ounces and I will send you the latest version of the software. I understand that shareware tends to live on forever, but I would like you to have the best possible impression of my work, and while I am not currently aware of any bugs, I can pretty much assure you that the software will be even better 9 months down the line than it is now. The address is: Access Microsystems Inc. 404 Midstreams Road Brick, New Jersey 08724 Thank you! What's New? 03/21/93 Enhance Index Testing. Allow selection of individual index or all indices, also report more on the failure (reason, key number, record number. Information logged to log file if so desired, as well. (see 11/25/92 note). Change menu system. ALT plus a key such as 'F' for FIle, 'H' for Help, 'O' for Options, will bring you to that menu from any other menu. Release 1.44 01/16/93 Fix BTFILER.MSK to allow field edit to work properly with decimal places. 01/02/92 Made changes to allow for proper use with data only files. 12/29/92 Re-compiled ad resolved unexplained hang-up problem with some files. 12/26/92 Add support for F9 key in Edit. F9 will allow you to pick a place in a file, define a field type, length and decimals and display and edit a binary value. Release 1.43 12/09/92 Fix problem with export of ASCII. 12/03/92 Fix additional index tests, had a problem with ZSTRINGS 11/30/92 Include additional test for index that differs from data. This should, of course, not occur, but that's what testing is for! 11/25/92 Finalize logging for reporting results of test/rebuild. All messages that indicate success include "OK" (not the quotes, just two letters). All message that indicate failure include "FAIL". To use: use a /L or /L:LOGFILE.EXT parameter to BTFILER. '/L' results in information appended to BTFILER.LOG in current working directory. VERSION 1.42! 11/04/92 Minor touch. If you enter a filename containing '*' or '?' and no file like that exists, the program now tells you so. This will make the program a bit more usable. 10/29/92 Fix bug with import of unformatted ASCII when "Open Destination in Accelerated Mode" checked. (Thanks to Paul at Posse, Inc.) 08/28/92 Add BTCOPY.BAT batch file, and fix BTFILER to allow keystroke file to work correctly. 08/21/92 Make the parsing (reading, interpreting) of of .INX files more relaxed. Allow empty lines (all spaces) to be treated as comments, rather than causing errors. Fix up interpretation of very large unsigned numbers in import and export. 08/07/92 Break error message on create I/O error into two line so screen does not get messed up if long pathnames are used. Also, change behavior of string and lstring export: Convert embedded NULLs to spaces. 08/03/92 Add support for Pascal 6 byte REAL (Turbo Pascal) for import and export. 07/04/92 Compile under Borland C++ 3.1 Fix bug that caused hang during startup SOMETIMES if PATH was longer than 100 bytes. 06/19/92 Fix minor problem with NUMERIC import. 06/07/92 Fix problem with DATE Import/Export. 06/03/92 Fix problem with BFLOAT import. Was not working correctly for all valid sizes. 06/01/92 Add HEX Search option on View menu during browse. To use, simply choose the HEX search option, fill in the info, and then press ESC. Answer the question about global search, and the info will be searched for. 05/28/92 We will ship no software before its time. IT'S TIME! Final strnageness removed with BFLOAT export, and refine Btrieve Page Size Calculator. 05/17/92 Add Comma delimited import as an option on a new Import menu. Still BETA, not yet fully tested. 05/14/92 Add Comma delimited export as an option on a new Export menu. This becomes BETA Version 1.40! Final version 1.40 will have comma delimited import as well. 04/21/92 Fix problem where BREQUEST version number was not recognized when BREQUEST was loaded by BTFILER. Further, made sure BREQUEST and BTFILER better co-exist. (Internal testing). 04/20/92 Change menu structure around the more exotic file recovery methods. Under Test/Rebuild Btrieve File create an additional sub menu called when Advanced File Recovery is selected. This is to try and ensure that these file recovery tools do not get overused. They are both capable of doing some harm, and should almost never be needed. Also, a warning screen has been placed in front of both options (Recover EVERY POSSIBLE Record and Rebuild Header). 04/17/92 Add FULL recovery, an exaustive recovery technique that tries EVERY possible record position, and even if Btrieve returns a status 2, the program then uses DOS (fixed length files with no owner set, so as to ensure that we don't try to read encrypted data) to read the data at the position we think it might be. We don't even touch files with data compression, blank truncation, or key only files. There are limits! Use of this on a damaged file will probably require some manual intervention to delete "extra" records, but it beats trying to re-enter the data! (Thanks to: Davin Church [NOVDEV] for some of the ideas about this recovery method). 04/16/92 Changed the way that some operations (pack and copy) get records from the source file. Formerly used Key 0, now use physical positioning. (Thanks to: Davin Church [NOVDEV]). 04/03/92 Add ability to use INSERT and DELETE in the Hex/ASCII edit screen. Also add F1 support in Hex/ASCII edit. 04/02/92 Add support for Header Rebuild. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT FOR FOLKS WHO DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING! In any case, the Rebuild Header option on Test/Rebuild on the main File menu should only be used after you have tried to do a normal rebuild. To rebuild the header, you MUST have a btrieve file available with EXACTLY the same file structure as the one whose header you wish to rebuild. After the rebuild of the header completes successfully, you will be brought to the file rebuild screen with the file to rebuild already filled in. Also, the drive where the work file should be built during a rebuild can also be set now to allow for the rebuild of a file that is larger than the free space on the disk where the file resides. REMEMBER: During header rebuilding you can just as easily damage a good file as fix a bad one! You should make a backup of the file before you try the header rebuild so you can try other methods if BTFILER fails. Also, there have been several small fixes to allow for better recovery of variable length files. 03/27/92 Fix odd display of % Utilization when file has 0 records. 03/26/92 Change behavior of abandon during COPY operation when ESC pressed. Also add ability to use PREALLOCATION= line (optional just after FREE SPACE THRESHOLD=) in .BTB BTrieve Build description file. Allow 0 value in FREE SPACE THRESHOLD= line to allow 0 free space threshold. 03/25/92 Open Btrieve "source" files in various places in Read Only mode, so that the file is more likely to be able to be read. 03/19/92 Add color customization, ensure colors updated properly when using a program like Carbon Copy with differing video adaptors. Several minor tweaks. Version 1.31. 03/15/92 Add error reporting to some areas not previously reporting errors. (For instance, when you "View Begining with"). Place up-to-date copy of BTFILER.MSK into ZIP. 02/29/92 Fix problem with packing of files with duplicates allowed in key 0. BTFILER was reading the records just fine, but was adding them to the packed file in such a way that the duplicates in key 0 were causing UPDATES, not INSERTS. "Always Insert" flag added to PACK and COPY screen. (Thanks to Mike Trill from CompuServe for pointing this one out.) Also, add COPY option for one stop export/import into new format. (In the PM) Cause a clone to be built in copy if destination does not exist. 02/26/92 Fix silly display problem when last record in file deleted. 02/19/92 Fix status 22 occuring in error on variable length records. (Internal testing). 02/17/92 (Happy Washington's Birthday!) Little changes resulting from extensive testing. Expand size of possible keystroke file to 200. Make the /c:myconfig.cf2 file the file written to, if specified on the command line. Also add ability to specify MANUAL as a key type. First general release of 1.30. 02/11/92 New version fixes. Fix display problems for lines shorter than 80, fix odd behavior when last record is deleted (again...this reared it's ugly head before...) and ensure that highlighting does not disappear during record delete. Still BETA, for brave souls who do frequent backups (just in case!). 02/07/92 New Version! Ver. 1.30 adds ability to use a file of keystrokes to run the program (Batch mode). See BTCLONE.BAT and BTRESET.BAT for info on creating files. Also, the open mode of the files Browsed/Edited can be set. In addition, the default filename mask can be set. If you already have edited a file, you can get back to the default filename mask by pressing <F9> in fields where the status line says you can. You can also clear out any data entry field by pressing <CTRL-C>. There are also some memory allocation fixes. Features added include: Transactions can be started, abandoned or finished out properly (although the program in BETA will allow you to try to do silly things while in a transaction, and simply fail with an error message rather than letting you know up front.) Supplemental index addition is now supported. See SAMPLE.BTS (Btrieve Supplemental) for details. BETA RELEASE! 01/27/92 Fix problem that happens during PACK with SHARE loaded. PACK works fine, but error was reported at the end of the process, and temporary files were not deleted. (Thanks to: Carl in Orlando). 01/22/92 Bug fix. Fixed problem with screen display if last record on screen deleted. Problem might have just been added with the 1/20/92 change to the program. (internal testing). 01/20/92 Bug Fixes. Also, change version number to 1.21 to ensure I will know if you have the latest version if you call. Fix problem with saving of variable length records. If you edited the first record in a variable length file, made no changes, and edited that record again, the record length would be reported as the maximum record length specified in the "Set Misc. Parameters" section. (Thanks to: Brian Levine of Orlando) Also, remove "<ESC> to Exit Help" message when you have exited help. (Thanks to: Steve Checkosky in Syracuse) Fixed memory allocation bug while deleting records. (Internal testing). Along the way, added a feature that allow for setting of length of a variable length record when you go to save it. Uses current length as default, and will use current length if length is too long (longer than Longest variable length record setting in "Set Misc. Parameters") or too short (shorter than fixed length portion of record). Also, see the documentation regarding ways to register BTFILER if you must use a credit card. You may do so through CompuServe or the toll free number listed in the documentation. 01/17/92 Bug fixes/Silly Spelling error fix. Fixed problem that caused an Abnormal Program Termination if statistics were requested on a file with 0 records. (Thanks to: Jamie Bozzo from Mass.) Fixed spelling errors in BTFILER.MNU and BTFILER.HLP. 01/04/92 Bug fixes. Fixed problem that could cause NULL Pointer error (Thanks to: Brian Levine of Orlando) and problem that could allow editing of the byte in memory just BEFORE the buffer for a Btrieve record (internal testing). 12/20/91 NEW VERSION (1.20). Help available when BTRIEVE errors occur, explanations of BTRIEVE errors available while listing errors. New features include Set and Clear owner, Statistics on a Btrieve file, improvements to the Import/Export utility (a late version 1.10 add-in). Print documantation from the menu. Also, Btrieve Page Size Calculator, Create Btrieve fiels for ASCII BTrieve Build (BTB) description file. Like BUTIL -CREATE but with MUCH better error reporting! 12/05/91 Various fixes. Fixed some oddness if the menu control, fixed a problem with error reporting (changes to BTFILER.BER), and made the HEX/ASCII edit routine allow display and edit of 256 bytes at a time, double the previous display. Changed system behavior during EXPORT. Prompts user to see if s/he wants to delete destination ASCII file before doing export, or export is abandoned. This was needed since there could be problems if the destination ASCII file was created by BUTIL -RECOVER, since this results in a literal control-Z written to the file, which will cause problems for BTFILER during Import. While browsing a file, the HOME and END keys work to put you at the beginning and the end of the file, respectively. 12/01/91 Import/Export is added to the FILE menu.