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- DROPCONVERT v3.1 - Manipulate, Filter and Translate Text Files
- ==============================================================
-
- Copyright (c) 1998 Simon A Carter for Crystal Software
-
- DropConvert is SHAREWARE and may be trialed for a period of 30 days. After
- this time you must either purchase the registered version (for $20) or
- cease using the shareware version.
-
- Please register your USAGE of DropConvert by sending email to
- launch@ozemail.com.au, with your name and address, version of DropConvert
- and any relevant comments or suggestions. By registering DropConvert we
- can inform you of updates or improvements and let you know when the next
- version is released.
-
- If you like and use DropConvert, how about linking to our Web site (see
- below)?
-
-
- Online Web Registration with Albert's Ambry
- ===========================================
- The registered version of DropConvert can be purchased and received
- immediately on the Internet, eliminating shipping and handling costs.
-
- Direct URL: http://secure.alberts.com/p?product=645&source=authprg
-
- OR go to
-
- http://www.alberts.com
-
- and search for: DropConvert
-
- Click on the "Buy it" hotlink to register DropConvert.
-
-
- Contact Information
- ===================
- We are always happy to hear your comments! If you use and like
- DropConvert, or have any suggestions for improvements, please drop us a
- line! Other user's suggestions have made it what it is today.
-
- Email: launch@ozemail.com.au
- WWW: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~launch
- Fax: +61 (3) 9800-3078
- Voice: +61 (3) 9888-3104. After hours number. Please leave a
- contact name, number and time, and we will try to get back
- to you within 24 hours.
- Mail: Simon Carter
- Crystal Software
- 2 / 9 Woodbine Court
- Wantirna
- Victoria 3152
- AUSTRALIA.
-
-
- Benefits
- ========
- DropConvert is a powerful 32-bit utility that can apply a set of
- conversion, translation and filtering operations to a group of files or to
- the contents of the Windows clipboard.
-
- Its myriad uses include:
-
- * Cross-platform development
- * Quick text processing
- * Adding extra word-processing capabilities through converting the
- clipboard contents
- * Adding line breaks between fixed-length records
- * Performing multiple search/replaces on a batch of files - very
- useful for Web sites.
- * Converting or reading mainframe, Unix, DOS, Amiga or Macintosh
- files
- * Making HTML files readable without a Web browser
- * Reducing the size of HTML files for faster page loading
- * Reformatting text eg. preparing ASCII files for word processing
- * Making text files readable that contain ANSI escape codes,
- binary characters or IBM graphics characters
- * Adding an email reply prefix to every line
- * Converting text from one language to another (eg Pascal to c)
- * Reducing the size of source code
- * Making global source code changes
- * Correcting text files incorrectly FTP'd in binary mode.
-
- DropConvert can be entirely command-line-driven for automation eg.
- overnight batch runs. It is multi-threaded, so multiple conversions can
- occur simultaneously. Multiple filters can be stacked in a user-defined
- order, so multiple search and replace operations can occur in a single
- pass.
-
- DropConvert runs under Windows 95, 98 or NT.
-
-
- Features
- ========
- DropConvert can perform automated or manual line-feed conversion to and
- from DOS, Unix, Amiga and Macintosh input formats, and convert fixed-
- length records (with a user-specified length) to separate lines.
-
- To make files smaller and/or more readable, DropConvert offers filters to:
- * remove binary characters
- * remove ANSI escape sequences
- * remove blanks from the start and end of lines
- * remove blank lines
- * compress multiple whitespace to a single space
- * remove HTML and SGML codes
- * remove or resolve backspaces
- * change IBM drawing characters to + and | and -
-
- To manipulate the text in files, DropConvert offers filters to:
- * perform an arbitrary user-defined translation. The user can
- specify a string to be output for each of the 256 possible
- character codes. Strings can contain embedded control characters
- * search and replace: with case sensitivity option. It gives the
- length of search and replace strings -- especially useful for
- text replacement in binary files
- * add a prefix to every line (eg to add reply quotes to email)
- * change character case: UPPERCASE, lowercase, tOGGLE cASE, Title
- Case, Sentence case
- * change character representation: ASCII <= EBCDIC. Useful for
- mainframes
- * change Windows OEM <= ANSI. Useful with Windows and non-English
- languages
-
- DropConvert offers the following file processing options:
- * can skip binary files (those with less than 80% readable
- characters) The user
- * can also be prompted whether to process a binary file or not
- * can prompt before processing each file
- * can retain the original file's time and date
- * can recurse into subdirectories
- * can process both text and binary files of any size
- * test mode where output goes to a new file rather than
- overwriting the original file
-
- Special features include:
- * Filter lists can be saved and loaded
- * Files can be quickly viewed with their associated application
- * Many methods of adding files to the list - selected via
- wildcards on the command line, specified in the application,
- drag and drop from explorer or via a Browse dialog
- * Accept a list filename on the command line to include large
- lists of files that couldn't otherwise be specified. Can be used
- in conjunction with the Load List From File and Save List To
- File icons.
- * Accepts wildcards on the command line and in list files. The
- wildcards are expanded during processing.
-
-
- Installation
- ============
- DropConvert is simple to install, and no configuration is required. A
- single copy can be placed on the file server for everyone to access.
-
- Create a new directory for DropConvert under your c:\Program Files
- directory. Extract all the files to this directory.
-
- c:\> cd "Program Files" [Enter]
- c:\Program Files> mkdir "DropConvert" [Enter]
- c:\Program Files> cd "DropConvert" [Enter]
- c:\Program Files\DropConvert> pkunzip a:\dropconv.zip [Enter]
-
- DropConvert will create the registry entries that it needs when it is
- first run. It will also create a new desktop icon.
-
-
- Creating an Explorer Context Menu
- ---------------------------------
- You can add a file association for DropConvert so it will appear when
- you right-click on a text file. In an Explorer window, click
- View\Options. Select the "File Types" tab and the "Text Document"
- entry and click "Edit". Click "New" and give it an appropriate
- "Action" name (like "DropConvert...") and use
-
- "C:\Program Files\DropConvert\DropConvert.exe" "%1"
-
- as the program path and name.
-
-
- How To Use DropConvert
- ======================
- Using DropConvert is simple:
-
- 1. Choose the files you wish to process
- 2. There are four main methods for doing so:
-
- a) Provide the names of the files you wish to process on the
- command line, either by name (using wildcards) or in a list file
- b) Drag and drop the files from Windows Explorer either onto
- DropConvert's main window or onto its icon
- c) Type a filespec (eg. a:\*.txt) into the files dialog box and
- click [Add]
- d) Click the browse button, then select a group of files and then
- click [Ok]
- e) ...or any combination of these methods
-
- 3. The resulting file list can be edited by selecting entries and
- pressing [Delete] to remove selected entries or by pressing [Clear All] to
- remove all entries.
- 4. The [View] button can be used to display the selected file(s) in
- their associated applications.
- 5. Select the ôFiltersö tab.
- 6. Select the desired conversion/translation options by clicking in the
- menus. Customise a filter's options by selecting it in the list and
- changing the fields on the right hand side.
- 7. Click the "Goö button to start conversion.
- 8. While the conversion is in progress, you can click the "Stop" button
- to cancel it, or you can use the main window to build up another
- conversion job.
-
-
- User Interface
- ==============
-
- File Lists
- ----------
- DropConvert can read the file list from a file. This means that you
- can easily create a list of files to process for various tasks, and
- load it when required rather than go through the laborious task of
- adding the files to the list each time.
-
- The file consists of a single file specification per line eg.
-
- c:\my documents\*.txt
- c:\bp\*.pas
- d:\job_ads\*.*
-
- To load a file list, click on the load icon on the files tab. An open
- dialog box appears. Select one or more files to load and click on the
- Ok button.
-
- The currently displayed file list can be saved to a file by clicking
- on the save icon on the files tab. A save dialog appears and an
- existing filename can be selected or a new one specified.
-
- A file list can be loaded on the command line by using the
- /F=<filename> option.
-
-
- Filter Lists
- ------------
- DropConvert can read a filter list from a file. This means that you
- can easily define a filtering operation for different tasks, and load
- it when required rather than go through the laborious task of setting
- up the filters each time.
-
- A filter file is stored in an internal format and should not be
- edited.
-
- To load a filter list, click on the load icon on the filter tab. An
- open dialog box appears. Select a filter to load and click on the Ok
- button.
-
- The currently displayed filter list can be saved to a file by clicking
- on the save icon on the filter tab. A save dialog appears and an
- existing filename can be selected or a new one specified.
-
- A filter list can be loaded on the command line by using the
- /L=<filename> option.
-
-
- Unprintable Characters
- ----------------------
- DropConvert allows you to embed control characters in search and
- replace strings, line prefixes and user-defined replacement strings.
- Once you know the ASCII code of the character to embed, precede it
- with a '\' character and enter its 3 digit decimal code (leading
- zeroes are required).
-
- Eg.
-
- To search for "hello" followed by a tab followed by "there" followed
- by a DOS end of line,
-
- Enter the search string as "hello\009there\013\010", where \009 is the
- code for a Tab (see table at end of document).
-
-
- Drag and Drop
- -------------
- Files dropped from Windows Explorer onto either DropConvert's icon,
- its minimised window or its open window are automatically placed in
- the files list.
-
-
- File Options
- ============
- The following options only apply when files are being processing - they do
- not apply to the clipboard.
-
- Prompt for each file
- --------------------
- Before processing each file, DropConvert prompts the user to confirm
- that the file should be processed.
-
- This option cannot be enabled from the command line.
-
-
- Retain original file date/time
- ------------------------------
- The processed file is given the same date and time as the original
- file.
-
- This option can be enabled on the command line by using the /N option.
- Retaining the date and time is disabled by default.
-
-
- Binary files
- ------------
- Generally it isn't useful to process binary files, because they have
- structure imposed on them by the file format (unlike text files).
- Files that look like they are binary (less than 80 of the first 100
- characters are readable) are considered to be binary.
-
- This option can be enabled on the command line by using the /B=P
- (process binary files) or /B=S (skip binary files) option. The option
- to prompt cannot be chosen from the command line.
-
-
- Test mode
- ---------
- The processed file is output to a new file. This is handy to ensure
- that you don't destroy your original file. The new file is the
- original file's name with '.dCv' added to it.
-
- This option can be enabled on the command line by using the /T option.
- Test mode is disabled by default.
-
-
- Filters
- =======
- This section describes the filters whose purpose is not obvious.
-
-
- Remove ANSI Escape Sequences
- ----------------------------
- ANSI (American National Standards Institute) codes are included in
- various streams of information (most commonly BBS connections), to
- provide a remote computer with control over cursor positioning, text
- attributes, etc. They are also used in connections between
- minicomputers and mainframe computers and the terminals connected to
- them.
-
- The need to use an ANSI filter can be recognised when something like
- the following example shows up in a file viewed in a text editor:
-
- <[0;1;4mas<[m - MC88000 assembler
-
- In this example the "as" near the beginning is displayed in a
- different colour than the rest of the line when the ANSI codes are
- properly processed. The Escape (ASCII 27) codes above have been
- replaced by the < symbol to make this line printable.
-
- The Remove ANSI Escape Sequences filter can be used to filter out
- these codes and "clean up" the text so that it can be used in standard
- fashions such as copying and pasting into a word processor. On Unix
- machines the man (manual) help utility will only allow page-by-page
- browsing through a file in a forward direction. By piping the man
- output to a text file, transferring it to a DOS machine, and running
- it through the Remove ANSI Escape Sequences filter (and the Convert
- EOL filter - Unix to DOS if desired), a standard DOS editor can be
- used for browsing through the file, quoting from it, etc.
-
- This filter can be enabled on the command line by using the /RA
- option.
-
-
-
- Command Line Options - Summary
- ==============================
- DropConvert can be run from a DOS shell or from a shortcut with parameters
- to make it run totally automatically. This is very useful for performing
- conversions automatically or on machine start up (by making the short cut
- an entry in the Start Up folder).
-
-
- Usage:
- dropconvert [options] [wildcards]
-
- Where [options] is zero or more of:
- <wildcard> A wildcard or filename to add to the list of files to
- process
- /B<P|S> Skip binary files. Default: Skip. Use
- 'P' for Process binary files
- 'S' for Skip binary files
- /C<U|L|S|T|I> Case translation.
- 'U' for UPPERCASE
- 'L' for lowercase
- 'S' for Sentence case
- 'T' for Title Case
- 'I' for tOGGLE cASE
- /D Translate IBM drawing characters
- /E Exit after completion. Default: Off. Enabling this option
- causes DropConvert to exit immediately after all conversion
- threads complete. If an error occurs, it is displayed.
- /F=<filename> Load filter list file
- /G Go! Begin a conversion thread with the specified options.
- You can specify extra options and follow them with /G again
- to start a second thread of execution. All options return to
- default settings.
- /H<O|A> Character set translation
- O for OEM -> ANSI
- A for ANSI -> OEM
- /I Subdirectory recursion. Default: On. Specifying this option
- turns it off
- /L=<filename> Name of a list file to process for wildcards. The file
- should contain one wildcard per line eg.
-
- C:\docs\*.txt
- D:\unix\*.*
- ...etc
- /LF<D|M|U|A|F Line feed conversion.
- [cpr]><D|M|U| Input format:
- N> 'M' for Mac
- 'D' for DOS
- 'U' for Unix/Amiga
- 'A' for Auto
- 'F' for Fixed Length, followed by the number of characters
- per record (cpr).
- Output format:
- 'M' for Mac
- 'D' for DOS
- 'U' for Unix/Amiga
- 'N' for None.
- /P<A|E> Representation translation
- A for ASCII -> EBCDIC
- E for EBCDIC -> ASCII
- /Q=prefix Line prefix. For strings with embedded spaces, surround the
- whole parameter in quotes eg
- dropconvert "/Q=you> "
- /R[A|B|E|H|K| Remove
- L|O|R|S|W] A ANSI codes - removes ESC[ sequences
- B Binary characters - removes all chars > 127
- E Blanks from End of Lines
- H HTML and SGML. Removes all text inside <> pairs
- K Backspaces
- L Blank lines
- O Remove Bad EOL's
- R Resolve backspaces
- S Blanks from Start of Lines
- W Multiple whitespace
- /S=<search> Search string. Used in conjunction with the /K and /A
- options to specify case-sensitivity and the replace string
- respectively. For strings with embedded spaces, surround the
- whole parameter in quotes eg
- dropconvert "/S=rose are blue" /K- "/A=violets are yellow"
- /K Case sensitive search/replace. Default: Off. Select this
- option to search for text that is capitalized exactly the
- way you type it in the Search text box. If you do not select
- Case, DropConvert finds all occurrences of the text,
- regardless of capitalization.
-
- Note: This option must appear BETWEEN the /S and /A options.
- /A=<replace> Replace string. For strings with embedded spaces, surround
- the whole parameter in quotes eg
- dropconvert "/S=rose are blue" /K+ "/A=violets are yellow"
- /T Test mode. Default: Off. Specifying this option turns test
- mode on.
- /TS<number> Expands tabs to spaces. Each tab is replaced by from 0 to
- number-1 spaces depending on the current column.
- /ST<number> Compresses spaces to tabs. Tab stops are number columns
- apart.
- /U=<filename> User defined translation - loads the specified .udt file.
- /WW<number> Word wrap with column width of number.
-
-
- Standard ASCII codes
- ====================
- ASCII = American National Standard Code for Information Interchange
-
- Quoted-Printable encoding uses 3 digit decimal code prefixed by \ eg. CR
- is \013.
- Decimal Code ASCII
- 0 NUL Null
- 1 SOH Start of Heading (CC)
- 2 STX Start of Text (CC)
- 3 ETX End of Text (CC)
- 4 EOT End of Transmission (CC)
- 5 ENQ Enquiry (CC)
- 6 ACK Acknowledge (CC)
- 7 BEL Bell
- 8 BS Backspace (FE)
- 9 HT Horizontal Tabulation (FE)
- 10 LF Line Feed (FE)
- 11 VT Vertical Tabulation (FE)
- 12 FF Form Feed (FE) or Page Eject
- 13 CR Carriage Return (FE)
- 14 SO Shift Out
- 15 SI Shift In
- 16 DLE Data Link Escape (CC)
- 17 DC1 Device Control 1
- 18 DC2 Device Control 2
- 19 DC3 Device Control 3
- 20 DC4 Device Control 4
- 21 NAK Negative Acknowledge (CC)
- 22 SYN Synchronous Idle (CC)
- 23 ETB End of Transmission Block (CC)
- 24 CAN Cancel
- 25 EM End of Medium
- 26 SUB or Substitute or End of File
- EOF
- 27 ESC Escape
- 28 FS File Separator (IS)
- 29 GS Group Separator (IS)
- 30 RS Record Separator (IS)
- 31 US Unit Separator (IS)
- 32 SP Space
- 33 ! Exclamation Point
- 34 " Quotation Mark
- 35 # Number Sign, Octothorp, "pound"
- 36 $ Dollar Sign
- 37 % Percent
- 38 & Ampersand
- 39 ' Apostrophe, Prime
- 40 ( Left Parenthesis
- 41 ) Right Parenthesis
- 42 * Asterisk, "star"
- 43 + Plus Sign
- 44 , Comma
- 45 - Hyphen, Minus Sign
- 46 . Period, Decimal Point, "dot"
- 47 / Slash, Virgule
- 48 0 0
- 49 1 1
- 50 2 2
- 51 3 3
- 52 4 4
- 53 5 5
- 54 6 6
- 55 7 7
- 56 8 8
- 57 9 9
- 58 : Colon
- 59 ; Semicolon
- 60 < Less-than Sign
- 61 = Equal Sign
- 62 > Greater-than Sign
- 63 ? Question Mark
- 64 @ At Sign
- 65 A A
- 66 B B
- 67 C C
- 68 D D
- 69 E E
- 70 F F
- 71 G G
- 72 H H
- 73 I I
- 74 J J
- 75 K K
- 76 L L
- 77 M M
- 78 N N
- 79 O O
- 80 P P
- 81 Q Q
- 82 R R
- 83 S S
- 84 T T
- 85 U U
- 86 V V
- 87 W W
- 88 X X
- 89 Y Y
- 90 Z Z
- 91 [ Opening Bracket
- 92 \ Reverse Slant
- 93 ] Closing Bracket
- 94 ^ Circumflex, Caret
- 95 _ Underline, Underscore
- 96 ` Grave Accent
- 97 a a
- 98 b b
- 99 c c
- 100 d d
- 101 e e
- 102 f f
- 103 g g
- 104 h h
- 105 i i
- 106 j j
- 107 k k
- 108 l l
- 109 m m
- 110 n n
- 111 o o
- 112 p p
- 113 q q
- 114 r r
- 115 s s
- 116 t t
- 117 u u
- 118 v v
- 119 w w
- 120 x x
- 121 y y
- 122 z z
- 123 { Opening Brace
- 124 | Vertical Line
- 125 } Closing Brace
- 126 ~ Tilde
- 127 DEL Delete
- 128 Reserved
- 129 Reserved
- 130 Reserved
- 131 Reserved
- 132 IND Index (FE)
- 133 NEL Next Line (FE)
- 134 SSA Start of Selected Area
- 135 ESA End of Selected Area
- 136 HTS Horizontal Tabulation Set (FE)
- 137 HTJ Horizontal Tabulation with
- Justification (FE)
- 138 VTS Vertical Tabulation Set (FE)
- 139 PLD Partial Line Down (FE)
- 140 PLU Partial Line Up (FE)
- 141 RI Reverse Index (FE)
- 142 SS2 Single Shift Two (1)
- 143 SS3 Single Shift Three (1)
- 144 DCS Device Control String (2)
- 145 PU1 Private Use One
- 146 PU2 Private Use Two
- 147 STS Set Transmit State
- 148 CCH Cancel Character
- 149 MW Message Waiting
- 150 SPA Start of Protected Area
- 151 EPA End of Protected Area
- 152 Reserved
- 153 Reserved
- 154 Reserved
- 155 CSI Control Sequence Introducer (1)
- 156 ST String Terminator (2)
- 157 OSC Operating System Command (2)
- 158 PM Privacy Message (2)
- 159 APC Application Program Command (2)
- 160-254
- 255 Invisible space
- NOTES:
- (1) Introducer
- (2) String Delimiter
- (CC) Communication Control
- (FE) Format effector
- (IS) Information Separator
-