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ARP Users Manual V1.1 (REL2) ARP Users Manual V1.1 (REL2) ABSTRACT Wherein we present some of the truly outstanding features of the new ARP programs, attempting to point the way for new users of ARP to take immediate advantage of the ARP software. If you have already been using ARP for a while, you might wish to begin reading with section 2. CONTENTS 1. General Features of ARP Programs.................... 1 1.1 Command format................................. 1 1.2 Commands and Templates......................... 3 1.3 Escapes........................................ 5 1.4 ARP and Wildcards.............................. 7 2. Status of V1.1 (REL2) of ARP........................ 8 2.1 Support for Release 2.......................... 8 3. REL2 improvements and additions..................... 9 3.1 Changes to old commands........................ 9 3.1.1 Assign 10 3.1.2 Type 10 3.1.3 Set and Environment variables 11 3.2 Introducing Resident and Resident Programs..... 11 3.3 Other new programs............................. 11 - i - ARP Users Manual V1.1 Software (REL2) February 27, 1988 1. General Features of ARP Programs Since one of the goals of ARP is to make the Amiga easier for you to use, we tried as hard as we could to make it possible for you to install ARP, and continue to use previously written batch files without any change at all. Additionally, you should be able to use the ARP programs immediately, without learning anything more about them, since the degree of compatibility is very high. However, ARP programs are generally enhanced and improved, and generally much easier to use. To take advantage of these new features, you have to learn about them, so read on! 1.1 Command format One of the problems with the original AmigaDOS programs was that they are too inconsistant. Some programs accepted 10 or 20 filenames, and also allowed you to use wildcards to specify files. Some programs accepted multiple files, but didn't allow wild cards. And some programs accepted only one filename. We have tried to fix this in ARP. Where it is reasonable to expect to be able to supply multiple arguments to a program, we have provided that capability*. Where it is reasonable to expect to be able to use wildcards, we have provided that capability also. We have attempted to make the command templates for programs more consistant as well, allowing abbreviations for commonly used switches and options. Commercial or public domain commands which use arp.library will be able to implement this same kind of consistant user interface. This consistant command interface provides a lot of power. As a simple example, consider the problem of dumping a lot of files to your printer for a quick reference. Let's say you want to send all the files in the current directory which end in ".c" to the printer. Due to the ARP command structure, there are no less than three ways to do this, and all of them use remarkably similar command lines: __________ * In REL2 of ARP there are no longer any limits to the number of commands you may enter. See chap.2 for more information. Page 1 ARP Users Manual V1.1 Software (REL2) February 27, 1988 1> Type #?.c to PRT: 1> Copy #?.c to PRT: 1> Join #?.c to PRT: Incidentally, we also supply a more standard set of wildcards, in addition to the ones in use on the Amiga, so you could also do 1> Type *.c to PRT: 1> Copy *.c to PRT: 1> Join *.c to PRT: If you were to try the same thing using the AmigaDOS programs, you would be in for a rude shock. First, let's try type: 1> Type #?.c to PRT: Can't open #?.c It appears that the AmigaDOS type doesn't understand wildcards. Well, let's try Copy: 1> Copy #?.c to PRT: Destination must be a directory Cute, Copy lets you use wildcards, but then you can't copy anything to the printer. It turns out that the only way to send all your files to the printer is to specify each one in full. And if you wanted to use the special capabilities of Type, for example, to add line numbers to the files as you print them out, you are reduced to multiple Type commands, since the AmigaDOS type only accepts one argument. Using the ARP Type, you can supply multiple arguments, and each argument can contain wildcards. The main point to notice here is how ARP provides you with a consistant command environment. Because the ARP programs don't impose artificial limitations, each command is more powerful and more useful. And because ARP programs strive to be consistant with each other, you don't have to remember silly special cases, and can apply what you have learned about one program to a new one. For example, having noticed that Copy, Join and Type all allow wildcards, you Page 2 ARP Users Manual V1.1 Software (REL2) February 27, 1988 can probably assume that a command like Rename does as well, and you would be correct. As another example of the increased power of ARP, let's say you wanted to move the three files memo1, memo2 and memo3 to a directory on the same disk called OLD_EMOS. Using AmigaDOS, you would have to do it this way: 1> Rename memo1 OLD_EMOS 1> Rename memo2 OLD_EMOS 1> Rename memo3 OLD_EMOS This kind of thing can get old pretty quickly. Using the ARP Rename, you would simply do 1> Rename memo? OLD_EMOS The '?' is of course a wildcard that matches any single character. 1.2 Commands and Templates When we spoke to Amiga users, one of the things they liked about the current Amiga programs were the use of command templates to specify the arguments to a program. Since people liked this, and it seemed like a good idea, we kept it in ARP. We extended and modified individual templates for commands, and we also have an extended help feature. Under AmigaDOS, if you supply a question mark (?) as the first argument to a command, it presents you with its command template, and waits for you to hand it some arguments. The same thing is true of ARP programs, but if you need even more information, just type another question mark when you get the template, like this: 1> Type ? FROM/...,TO/k,OPT/k: ? Type wildcards [TO Output] [OPT H(ex)|N(um)] FROMA/...,TO/k,OPT/k: The first thing Type gives you when you supply a question mark is its command template*. If that is not enough Page 3 ARP Users Manual V1.1 Software (REL2) February 27, 1988 information for you (for example, if you forget what options you can pass to type), typing another question mark after you get the template causes an additional help message to be displayed, and then the template is reprinted, and the command waits again for you to supply it with some arguments. This allows you to get extra help for commands you don't use often, and not be bothered by a lot of information for commands that you do use a lot. Another thing ARP tries hard to do is to give informative error messages. For example, when you type the following under AmigaDOS: 1> Echo "Hello World! Bad Args to Echo You get a not too helpful message. The same action using the ARP echo would cause: 1> Echo "Hello World! Bad Args: Unmatched quotes ARP attempts to help you identify the problem, so you can fix it more rapidly. As under AmigaDOS, you can supply arguments to ARP programs using either keywords, or using** positions: 1> Type infile 1> Type FROM infile 1> Type FROM infile TO outfile 1> Type OPT h TO outfile FROM infile All of the above will work. In addition, if you make an error: __________ * The template type for the FROM keyword (/...) is an ARP innovation, see chap.2 for more details. ** The template keywords are given in upper case only for clarity - you can use any case you like. Page 4 ARP Users Manual V1.1 Software (REL2) February 27, 1988 1> Type FROM Bad Args: Keyword needs an argument or 1> Type infile From outfile Bad Args: Bad positional argument the ARP programs once again attempt to help you diagnose the problem. In the first example, you specified a file by keyword (the FROM), but left off the filename. (If you really wanted to type a file by the name of FROM, you need to use double quotes, for example, Type "FROM". ARP programs, like AmigaDOS programs, assume that names inside of quotes are filenames and not template keywords.) In the second case, you gave the first argument twice, once by position, and then by keyword. Type doesn't know what you mean, since you appeared to have misused a positional argument. 1.3 Escapes AmigaDOS programs regard an asterisk inside of quotes as an 'escape' character, or a character that has a special meaning. Typically, the escape character is used to modify the meaning of the character that follows the escape. For example, "*F" would not display the two characters "*" and "F", the escape character "*" changes the meaning of the "F" character to a formfeed, which will clear the terminal screen, or advance the printer paper. A lot of people didn't care for "*" as an escape character. It is an unusual choice, most of the popular operating systems use a backslash (\) instead. In addition, the '*' character is a bit overloaded on the Amiga, it refers to the current window, the BCPL escape, and it is also ARPs (and most other Operating Systems) universal wildcard. You can use the Set program to change the wildcard character to a backslash like this: Set ESCAPE \ Just substitute your favorite escape character for the \ in the above example. The examples which follow assume you have your escape character set to a \, as shown above. ARP recognizes the following characters as special when preceeded by the current escape character: Page 5 ARP Users Manual V1.1 Software (REL2) February 27, 1988 \N Newline \T Horizontal Tab \V Vertical Tab \B Backspace \R Return \F Formfeed \E Escape (ascii 27) \Xnn Hex number nn those of you familiar with the limited escapes supported by AmigaDOS will notice that ARP supports a much greater variety of escape characters and options, although ARP programs (like AmigaDOS) programs, will only recognize the escape character inside of double quotes*, so if you want to use escapes, you must also use the double quotes. To include a single escape inside of quotes, you need to use two of them, like this "\\". You can also include double quotes inside of double quotes, by escaping them as well, for example, "\"Inside Quotes\"". As usual, of course, the special escaped characters can be either upper or lower case. If you use hex digits, there can be one or two of them, and they can also be either upper or lower case. Escapes can be very convenient to use, for example, to advance your printer paper to the next sheet, you can do: 1> Echo >PRT: "\F" Which sends a formfeed to the printer. You should generally be careful about using escapes in filenames, since this can lead to confusion. One place escape characters might be appropriate is in Filenotes, for example: 1> Filenote "Filename" "\X9B7mReverse Print Comment\X9B0m" Which will cause the filenote to List in reverse print when you display it, making it stand out more clearly. __________ * An exception to this is Echo, which always escapes its arguments. This is an example of ARP favoring convenience over consistancy. Page 6 ARP Users Manual V1.1 Software (REL2) February 27, 1988 1.4 ARP and Wildcards ARP has an extensive set of wildcards, and most ARP programs allow them to be used. ARP supports ALL of the AmigaDOS set of wildcards, as well as the more standard Unix* style of wildcards. ARP supports the following wildcard characters, note that these are valid inside or out of quotes: (a|b|c) Will match one of a, b or c. These can be patterns. ? Matches any single character #<pat> Pattern repeated 0 or more times, in particular, #? matches anything. [char] A set of characters, for example, [abc] or [a..c] specify the same set. [^char] Match everything but this set of characters. * 0 or more occurances of any character. These can be used in combination, of course, so that *.(c|h) or *.[ch] will match any filenames ending in either .c or .h preceeded by any number of characters, including no characters. In addition, ARP allows wildcards to be used at multiple levels of a directory hierarchy. For example, if you want to type all the files in all the directories of your INCLUDE directory, you could use 1> Type DF0:Include/*/* Which will take care of things nicely. You can be more selective, for example only typing files that start with T in directories that start with E: __________ * Unix is a trademark of AT&T. Page 7 ARP Users Manual V1.1 Software (REL2) February 27, 1988 1> Type DF0:Include/E*/T* But the best way to get used to the increased power of the ARP wildcard system is to sit down and enjoy using it. 2. Status of V1.1 (REL2) of ARP This release fixes all known bugs in the command programs and library, and largely meets ARP's initial goals of freeing the Amiga from a dependence on the BCPL library and interface by replacing the command programs in the C directory. The few programs not replaced are either already in C (i.e., DiskCopy, Format) or require major integration of new system components, such as NewCLI, RUN and Execute. These are being worked on and will be released (possibly as a separate release) in the next few months. We have also added support for international date formats in all the date handling programs and in the library. This was largely the work of Ken Salmon who also contributed some of the new command programs. The initial acceptance of ARP has been very encouraging, and we would like to thank the thousands of new users, especially those who sent in bug reports and/or suggestions. 2.1 Support for Release 2 There have been two preliminary releases since version 1.0, both of them for magazines ("Transactor for the Amiga" and "AmNews") which were carrying articles about ARP. While these releases represent advances over Release 1, they will not be supported. This is the official second releases (REL2) of ARP, with the corresponding version number of 1.1. If you have one of these preliminary versions of ARP, please upgrade to this one. You can use the ARP Version command to get the current versions of Kickstart, Workbench and ARP. Another way to get the ARP version is to type the following command from the CLI: 1> run LIBS:arp.library LIBS:arp.library failed returncode XX Page 8 ARP Users Manual V1.1 Software (REL2) February 27, 1988 The 'XX' will be the current major revision number of arp.library. For REL2, XX should read "34". If you have one of these preliminary releases, XX (or version) will be 32 or 33. 3. REL2 improvements and additions. 3.1 Changes to old commands A major change in all commands has been the introduction of a new argument template type. This type allows you to enter any number of arguments to a command. You are no longer reduced to counting comma's to see how many arguments a command requires. Here is a comparison of the two: REL1 and ADos: Delete ,,,,,,,,,, Allows 10 (?) arguments REL2 of ARP: Delete Files/... Allows any number of arguments. we think the new template type is clearer, and much more convenient to use. Anytime you see this new template type, please feel free to enter as many commands as the current CLI will let you. This new template type is used in most of the ARP commands that expect multiple arguments, old and new. The usage of this template type is compatible with the older templates, so this should not cause any problems with scripts or habits. Another command change/innovation is the use of the star "*" character in some commands to refer to the current directory. Both Rename and Copy use this convention, as well as supporting a limited form of prefix/postfix name additions. This is extremely convenient, and is another example of something ARP brings to the Amiga which has not been present in the BCPL versions of these programs. Another change which users should appreciate is the removal of the recoverable alert (GURU) when an ARP program could not find arp.library. This caused some confusion in the initial installations of arp, and we have removed it at the small cost of making programs about 62 bytes larger. You will now get a message on your terminal which says "You need ArpLib V34+ or Page 9 ARP Users Manual V1.1 Software (REL2) February 27, 1988 larger", instead of the older guru meditation. This means either you do not have an arp.library in your LIBS: logical directory, or you do not have the most recent version. There is also a new CLI command called LoadLib that can help out in situations like this. It can load arp.library (or any other library) into the Amiga and put it where programs can find it. This is useful when you must boot from a disk that does not have arp.library on it, but still want to use the ARP commands. This occasionally occurs with some copy protected software. International date formats are now supported for both input and output. Programs which use dates (Date, List, SetDate) output dates and expect input in the format defined by the environment variable dateformat. If no dateformat is defined, they default to the current AmigaDOS format. The formats supported are: - AmigaDOS (the default) - International - United States - Europe and Canadia. 3.1.1 Assign Assign now uses the new multiarged templates, but this by itself is not enough to earn it a spot in this overview. REL2 of Assign allows you to remove multiple assignments, or mix adding and removing assignments on the same line by using a dash (-) in place of the directory name. For example: - Assign FOOBAR: DF0: GROK: - ARP: DF0:C This causes Assign to create assignments for ARP and FOOBAR, but to delete any existing assignments for GROK. Admittedly, this is a strange syntax, but we are constrained by the earlier Assign syntax so we can't change it to one more like Set uses. 3.1.2 Type If you do not provide an input file to Type it will expect to receive keyboard input. It will send the output to any file or device you have specified on the command line as its output. This allows you to send output to the printer or disk files without having to enter into collisions with the ARP supported wildcard (*) and the original AmigaDOS's current window character, which unfortunately are the same thing. (See the description of Set, below). Page 10 ARP Users Manual V1.1 Software (REL2) February 27, 1988 This is a convention widely used in advanced operating systems, and we are pleased to introduce it to the Amiga. Here are two examples of its use: 1> TYPE TO PRT: or 1> TYPE TO DF0:MyFile The first sends keyboard output to the printer, while the second diverts it to MyFile on drive 0. If you simply use TYPE by itself, then it will echo your input to the current window. 3.1.3 Set and Environment variables Set has several new features. You can use Set to define your choice of escape character, and also to increase the level of BCPL compatibility for a few commands. Of course this must be done at a cost, but it may occasionally be needed. See the Set manual page for more information. There are also now two environment variables that are used by the ARP programs, dateformat and copyflags. See the Environment manual page for more information on these variables. 3.2 Introducing Resident and Resident Programs Thie release of ARP also introduces resident programs to Amiga users. These are programs which are loaded into memory once, no matter how many times they are executed. These programs can be big memory savers, since multiple invocations of a resident program will all use the same code. See the manual pages for Resident and ARun for more information on how to take advantage of this new feature. 3.3 Other new programs There are obviously many new programs, in fact, this is largely a complete set. For descriptions of these, please see the manual pages. Page 11