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- Volume 1, Number 6 10 April 1988
- +---------------------------------------------------------------+
- | |
- | - C News - |
- | |
- | International |
- | C Programming & Compiler Review |
- | Newsletter |
- | |
- +---------------------------------------------------------------+
- US Office:
- Editor Barry Lynch
- Technical Editor Marshall Presnell
-
- Australian Office:
- Editor David Nugent
- Asst Editor Kevin Bergin
-
- C News is published monthly by the C BBS as its official
- newsletter. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication
- in C News. Articles should be related to C programming and can be
- Tutorials, reviews or articles of interest to the C programming
- community. All Operating systems are fairly represented and this
- newsletter shows no favoritism to any one in particular. Instruct-
- ions on how to submit articles for publication is included on the
- last page.
-
- C News is the property of the C BBS and is Copyright 1988 by the
- the C BBS. All rights are reserved and distribution is limited to
- electronic distribution and personal printed copies. C News cannot
- be resold at any profit, by any organization. All material enclosed
- within the newsletter is the opinions of the writers and not the
- C BBS or it's Sysop.
- C News 1-06 10 Apr 1988
-
- =================================================================
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- =================================================================
-
-
- 1. EDITORIAL
- The Heap: messages from the editor.................... 1
-
- 2. SHORT SNIPS
- Magazine Review's
- by Barry Lynch ........................................ 2
-
- 3. BOOK REVIEWS
- C Chest: And other C Treasures from Dr. Dobb's ............ 5
- by Barry Lynch
-
- 4. SOFTWARE REVIEWS
- Public Domain: .......................................... 6
- PRNDOC.ARC, and SED.ARC
- by David Nugent
-
- 5. Authors Comments on Wildcard Expansion .................. 8
- by Bill Mayne
-
- 6. NOTES
- Article Submission Standards ............................. 10
- Address's ............................................... 11
- USER Response Form ....................................... 12
-
- 7. INDEX ................................................... 13
-
- 8. Distribution Points ..................................... 15 C News 1-06 Page 1 10 Apr 1988
-
- =================================================================
- EDITORIAL
- =================================================================
-
- C News: Where it has been and where it is going...
-
- Since the inception of C News, numerous changes have been
- made to the format, the distribution and the areas of coverage.
- In future issues, a beginners column will be featured as well as
- a Questions and Answer column. Both of these columns are in the
- development stage and should be ready for Issue 7. (Both of these
- columns are the result of the overwhelming requests submitted via
- the user response form. C News is growing and we hope to continue
- to provide the information that all C programmers find interesting
- and useful.
-
- This issue of C News is a little thin compared to some of the
- previous, but that is a direct reflection of the lack of contributions
- by readers and users. Suffice it to say, that I do not have the time
- or the knowledge to write and entire issue of C News myself. However,
- I will try harder in the future. With this issue of C news I have
- included a file that contains a subject thread that is of interest
- to me and to a good portion of the C programmers on the C BBS - UNIX.
- This thread contains messages from the developers of Micro-port UNIX
- and users on a forum on Compuserve. It is an interesting collection
- of thoughts and is good reading.
-
- Starting next month, another column will be featured covering
- MS Windows programming. This will eventually branch into OS/2 when
- I get a copy of the OS/2 Developers Kit. I cannot promise anything
- wonderful, as my windows programming is bare-bones, but it should
- pick up in time.
-
- One last thing, the C BBS is in the process of reorganizing and
- cataloguing the software available for download/file request. This
- should help all users find the software that they are looking for,
- and maybe save them some money on phonebills as well. This catalog
- will be available on-line and as a hardcopy report for a nominal
- fee to cover postage.
-
- Well, one more issue of C news has hit the streets, and I will
- continue work on a Data Structure article for C News readers by next
- issue. C U...
-
- Barry Lynch
-
- C News 1-06 Page 2 10 Apr 1988
-
- =================================================================
- SHORT SNIPS
- =================================================================
-
- Magazine Reviews:
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- Magazine: Computer Language
- Publisher: Miller Freeman Publications
- Published: Monthly cost $3.50US & $4.50 Canadian
- Subject Matter: Computer Languages
-
- Issue: Vol 5 No 3 - March 1988
-
- This issue of Computer Language offered a continuation of the
- article by Al Steven's on TSR's. This time the article was
- written with MSC 5.0 and QuickC in mind. Other articles in
- this issue include: DOS File Organization, and some reviews
- of Public Domain software with a UNIX flavor.
-
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- Magazine: Computer Language
- Publisher: Miller Freeman Publications
- Published: Monthly cost $3.50US & $4.50 Canadian
- Subject Matter: Computer Languages
-
- Issue: Vol 5 No 4 - April 1988
-
- Once again, Computer Language has geared an issue towards C, and
- this time with some articles covering the subject of Debugging.
- Matter of fact it is safe to say that this issue is dedicated to
- that subject, no less then three articles are presented. The
- first deals with The Discipline of Debugging a sort of primer to
- get you started. The second article is a review of features in
- languages that aid in debugging, and the third is an article on
- developing your own Debugger in C, with source.
-
- One other article of interest in this issue covers "wierd C bugs"
- as they put it, and is quite informative. All in all, this issue
- is quite useful and the staff of Computer Language have begun to
- produce more C related articles than in the past. CL is now one
- of my regular journals every month.
-
- C News 1-06 Page 3 10 Apr 1988
-
- =================================================================
- SHORT SNIPS
- =================================================================
-
- Magazine Reviews:
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- Magazine: Dr. Dobb's Journal of Software Tools
- Publisher: M&T Publishing
- Published: Monthly cost $2.95US & $3.95 Canadian
- Subject Matter: Programming Languages
-
- Issue: Vol 137 Mar 88
-
- Dr. Dobb's has long been recognized as an invaluable source of
- information for programmers in general. This issue is no exception
- with articles on Object oriented design, Binary Trees, Huge Arrays,
- and EGA Fonts. Also included in this issue is a review of
- Codeview, and graphic symbolic debugger available with the Micro-
- soft family of computer languages.
-
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- Magazine: Dr. Dobb's Journal of Software Tools
- Publisher: M&T Publishing
- Published: Monthly cost $2.95US & $3.95 Canadian
- Subject Matter: Programming Languages
-
- Issue: Vol 138 Apr 88
-
- This issue of Dr. Dobb's highlights an Artificial Intelligence
- Langauge called AAL. Several other articles on the subject of
- AI are included. Also included in Alan Hobub's monthly "C Chest"
- column is an article on Printf and how it works, and how it can
- be spruced up.
-
- C News 1-06 Page 4 10 Apr 1988
-
- =================================================================
- SHORT SNIPS
- =================================================================
-
- Magazine Reviews:
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- Magazine: Micro/Systems Journal
- Publisher: M&T Publishing
- Published: Monthly cost $3.95US & $4.95 Canadian
- Subject Matter: Programming Languages
-
- Issue: April 1988
-
- This particular issue of Micro Systems Journal is geared towards
- C and therefore is must reading for us C junkies. Articles on
- Debugging, Dos Functions, and a comparison of TurboC vs QuickC are
- presented. There are also some reviews of the Periscope line of
- hardware debuggers, that have been considered the best in the field
- for quite awhile. Micro Systems Journal does not always cover
- languages in depth, but occasionally an interesting issue such
- as this one becomes available.
-
- C News 1-06 Page 5 10 Apr 1988
-
- =================================================================
- BOOK REVIEWS
- =================================================================
-
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- C Chest: and other C Treasures from Dr. Dobb's Journal
- Author: Allen Hobub
- Publisher: M&T Books, Redwood, CA 1987
- Cost: $23.95 (US$)
-
- Being an avid Dr. Dobb's fan I noticed the advertisements for this
- book in issues of Dr. Dobb's for quite some time now. Today, when
- I was in the bookstore, I saw a copy on the shelf and opened it to
- browse the contents. This is what I found: Articles on, Pipes,
- Wild-Card Expansion, Sorting, Command-Line processing, Queues and
- Bit maps, MS-DOS directories, the UNIX Make utility, Curses and
- much more.
-
- This book is informative from my quick browse this afternoon and
- source is included with all chapters. The book is well written
- and covers alot of ground, but all topics are explained clearly
- and the source is well commented. This book is a compilation of
- the C Chest column from Dr. Dobb's from March 1985 to July 1987.
-
- C News 1-06 Page 6 10 Apr 1988
-
- =================================================================
- PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE REVIEWS:
- =================================================================
-
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- Filename: PRNDOC.ARC
-
- When I first downloaded this file, it had been posted as a C
- source code formatter, which I thought a great idea, since it
- could standardize the formatting of all my C source ...
-
- But this was not to be. While the incorrect posting did cause a
- few minutes of heartburn, it turned out to be a neat little print
- formatting utility for paginating documents; even allows
- inserting a left margin and is sensitive to double sided
- printing. Not bad.
-
- The program is provided with little documentation, but is
- completely prompt driven as easy to follow. It's quite a clever
- formatter that can take raw ASCII text and turn it into something
- quite presentable. No special .xx controls or tagging required.
- Just straight ASCII text.
-
- Source provided: Unfortunately not.
-
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- Filename: SED.ARC
-
- At last SOME of the power of Unix is available on the PC.
-
- SED is a PC/MS-DOS implementation of the Unix stream editor.
- This is a VERY powerful utility used in Xenix/Unix scripts (like
- MS-DOS batch files, only tones more clever) to edit files FROM
- THE COMMAND LINE. It is a utility which cannot be appreciated
- until you play with it.
-
- SED scripts can be developed to do amazing things with text and
- program source files. One sample script provided does most of
- the hacking required to transfer a pascal source file into C.
- All possible with a general purpose utility and an intelligent
- script.
-
- Of course SED is best applied repetitively, and is excellent for
- changing occurrences of a particular variable or function name for
- a complete group of files. While it may only be used
- occasionally from the command line, it can be used regularly to
- update and manipulate text files regularly.
-
- If you prefer to avoid technical utilities, you'd better avoid
- this one two. Power unfortunately has a trade-off - complexity -
- C News 1-06 Page 7 10 Apr 1988
-
- =================================================================
- PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE REVIEWS:
- =================================================================
-
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- Filename: SED.ARC Continued:
-
- and this utility is no exception. It uses Unix-style regular
- expression and 'magic' syntax and is, as far as I can determine,
- completely Unix/Xenix compatible. For those of you like me - who
- swap between the two - this is very handy.
-
- Source provided: All but the main() function. Damned if I know
- why it was omitted. Comes with the command parse and editor
- functions, which is 'just about' complete.
- Compiler: Standard K & R. No porting required and can be
- compiled under small models ok. You'll have to write your own
- main() [Just to freopen stdin/stdout for file redirection and
- open the command script].
-
- C News 1-06 Page 8 10 Apr 1988
-
- =================================================================
- AUTHORS COMMENT: ON "FILENAME WILDCARD EXPANSION IN MSC"
- =================================================================
-
-
- Before some perceptive reader of my article "Filename Wildcard
- Expansion in Microsoft C" in issue 4 of CNEWS accuses me of advocating
- reinventing the wheel, I should admit that the article and the
- programs it contained were written several months ago, before the
- release of MSC 5.0. The part telling how to compile and link under
- 5.0 was a last minute addition.
-
- I have since learned that MSC 5.0 provides library functions to expand
- wildcards which perform the same function as my "findentr()" and
- "findnext()". They are called "dos_findfirst()" and "dos_findnext()",
- respectively. Even the arguments are the same, except that the order
- of arguments expected by "dos_findfirst()" is different. The
- structure used to communicate with dos, called "find_t" is compatible
- with my "DTA_STRUCT". "DTA_STRUCT" looks a little more complicated
- because it goes a little further and declares bit fields which are
- useful in splitting up the date and time fields. Since the actual
- structures are the same you could use casts and refer to DTA_STRUCT
- fields while using the library functions instead of those shown in the
- article. The declaration of the new library functions and "find_t"
- structure is in <dos.h>.
-
- It is actually not surprising that the two versions of the C functions
- and the structures are so similar, both are simply interfaces to the
- same underlying DOS functions. No doubt there are many other versions
- around as well.
-
- For those who have MSC 5.0, I see no advantage in using "findentr()"
- and the other functions in the article over the ones Microsoft
- provides. Quite the contrary, I would hope that the library versions
- are written in assembly language or at least highly optimized for
- tighter object code. The code shown may still be useful to readers
- who have MSC 4.0 or earlier, or who have other compilers and can make
- the slight changes which would be needed to port the functions. It
- also provides some insight into the inner workings or DOS for those
- who may not have been familiar with them.
-
- There is one other thing I should have pointed out in the article.
- There is nothing particularly original about the utility "FF" which I
- used to illustrate the use of the functions and of recursion. As is
- obvious to anyone who collects public domain software, there are many
- other similar programs available in the public domain, such as
- "WHEREIS". The Norton Utilities and many other commercial packages
- also include such programs.
-
- My real motivation for writing FF, besides as an exercise, was to have
- a version which was easier to interrupt than the Norton version and to
- provide additional selection criteria, primarily selection by date.
- C News 1-06 Page 9 10 Apr 1988
-
- =================================================================
- AUTHORS COMMENT: ON "FILENAME WILDCARD EXPANSION IN MSC"
- =================================================================
-
- (I am always creating files and forgetting not only where I put them
- but what I named them, so I find it handy to search for files created
- on a given date, normally the current date.) The code presented in
- the article was actually produced by stripping out most of the
- functions which were my original reason for writing the program.
- FF.ARC, which was included in the CNEWS archive contains the full
- version. If you want to use FF for anything other than learning some
- programming tricks, try the version in FF.ARC.
-
- C News 1-06 Page 10 10 Apr 1988
-
- ================================================================
- ARTICLE SUBMISSION STANDARDS AND ADDRESSES
- ================================================================
-
- As I have repeatedly stated in this newsletter and previous
- issues, I would like to see user-submitted articles, reviews or
- questions. Listed below are the standards that should be
- followed to make my job easier as an editor.
-
-
- - Articles should be submitted in a ASCII non-formatted
- file.
-
- - If the article include code fragments as examples. Then
- you can include the entire source file if you like for
- inclusion with the newsletter.
-
- - Book or magazine reviews should follow the same format,
- that is outlined in this issue. The publisher, author,
- title, and ISBN number are a must.
-
- - Compiler/and or product reviews, should include the
- version number and manufacture. If possible, reviews
- should include a sample program with benchmarks.
-
-
- If you have any questions you can contact me at the
- address's included on the next page.
-
- C News 1-06 Page 11 10 Apr 1988
-
- ================================================================
- ADDRESSES
- ================================================================
-
- The C BBS is located at:
-
- C BBS
- % BCL Limited
- P.O. Box 9162
- McLean VA, 22102
-
-
- or you can send netmail to:
-
-
- 1:109/713
-
-
-
-
- C News 1-06 Page 12 10 Apr 1988
-
- ================================================================
- USER RESPONSE FORM:
- ================================================================
-
- This form will be included as a regular feature in all future
- issues of C NEWS.
-
-
-
- What did you think of the content of this Issue? _____________
-
- _______________________________________________________________
-
-
- What improvements can you think of that would make C News a
- better tool for the C Community?
-
- _______________________________________________________________
-
- _______________________________________________________________
-
-
- What is your favorite section or sections? ___________________
-
- _______________________________________________________________
-
-
- What don't you like about C News? ____________________________
-
- _______________________________________________________________
-
-
- Additional Comments: _________________________________________
-
- _______________________________________________________________
-
- _______________________________________________________________
-
- _______________________________________________________________
-
- C News 1-06 Page 13 10 Apr 1988
-
- ================================================================
- INDEX
- ================================================================
-
- Subject: Issue:
-
- Articles:
-
- Additional Comments of Filename Wild.. 6
- Filename Wildcard Expansion in MSC 4
- Integrated Environment: TC & QC 5
- Talking with a Fossil 5
- TurboC and Interrupts: A few Questions 2
-
- Book Reviews:
-
- C Chest: and other treasures. 6
- C Database Development 1
- C Programming Guide 1
- C Programming Language 1
- C Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications 3
- C Programmer's Library 1
- C Primer Plus 1
- C the Complete Reference 2
- Crafting C Tools for the IBM PC 2
- Learning to Program in C 1
- Microsoft C Programming on the IBM PC 1
- MS-DOS Developer's Guide 4
- Programming in Windows 3
- Reliable Data Structures in C 1
- TurboC: Memory Resident Utilities 5
- TurboC Programmer's Reference Book 2
-
-
- Compilers:
-
- QuickC 1
-
- Software Reviews:
-
- Bplus11.arc 3
- C_Dates.arc 4
- Cdate.arc 4
- Casm.arc 3
- C-subr.arc 4
- Docu.arc 3
- Jcl-src.arc 4
- Mscpopup.arc 3
- Ndmake41.arc 4
- Nuc-subr.arc 3
- Prndoc.arc 6
- Sed.arc 6
- C News 1-06 Page 14 10 Apr 1988
-
- ================================================================
- INDEX
- ================================================================
-
- Subject: Issue:
-
- Software Reviews Cont:
-
- Shift_c.arc 4
- Sysact11.arc 4
- Tp_to_qc.arc 3
- Xenixarc.arc 4
-
- C News 1-06 Page 15 10 Apr 1988
-
- ================================================================
- DISTRIBUTION POINTS
- ================================================================
-
-
- Board Name Number Net/Node Sysop
-
- United States
-
- C BBS (703) 998-8377 1:109/713 Barry Lynch
- Alexandria, VA
-
- Jaz C-Scape (904) 724-1377 1:112/1027 Tom Evans
- Jacksonville, FL
-
- Links.BBS (916) 343-4422 1:119/13 Tom Baughman
- Chico, CA
-
- Eastern C Board (201) 247-6748 1:107/335 Todd Lehr
-
- Rutgers1 (201) 932-4066 1:107/320 Michael Keyles
- Rutgers, NJ
-
- PTC Net (206) 757-4248 1:138/4 Arlen Fletcher
- Washington, State
-
-
-
- Canada
-
- Another BBS System (416) 465-7752 1:148/208 Mark Bowman
- Toronto, Canada
-
- Europe
-
- Fido_N1_1 31-8350-37156 2:500/1 Henk Wevers
- The Netherlands
-
- Australia
-
- Alpha-Centuri BBS 011-61-3-874-3559 3:632/348 David Nugent
-
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