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Online Reference Software Assembly language software products providing maximum performance in a minimum amount of space. FIND - fastest file and zip search for DOS Users Manual - October 15, 1991 Page 1 LICENSE STATEMENT Online Reference hereby grants you, the user, a non-exclusive license to use FIND in its delivered form. You may use the registered version of the software on any computer, provided that the software can in no way be used on more than one computer at the same time. You are encouraged to freely copy and distribute the share ware version of the software as long as it is not modified or missing any of the component files. WARRANTY Online Reference warrants software delivered by diskette to be an accurate copy of the master diskette. Defective diskettes will be replaced free of charge within 60 days after purchase. Online Reference explicitly disclaims all other warranties whether expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for any particular purpose. Online Reference shall have no liability for consequential, incidental, exemplary or special damages, including lost profits. Online Reference reserves the right to improve or change the product at any time without prior notice. TECHNICAL SUPPORT Completing the registration form and paying the published fees for the software, qualifies the owner for technical support. Page 2 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION.............................................. 5 Overview.............................................. 5 File contents......................................... 5 Enhancements.......................................... 5 FEATURES OVERVIEW......................................... 6 Standard Features summary............................. 6 Advanced Features summary............................. 6 FINDINST.................................................. 7 Overview.............................................. 7 Colors................................................ 8 Drive Search Range.................................... 9 Command Line Switches.................................10 CGA Snow Checking.....................................10 STANDARD FEATURES Performance...........................................11 DOS Wildcards.........................................12 Elapsed Time..........................................12 DOS Directory Format..................................13 Intelligent I/O.......................................13 Long Screen Support...................................13 Dynamic Memory Allocation.............................14 EMS Memory............................................14 Extended Disk Partitions..............................15 Multi-Drive Search....................................15 SNAPSHOT Disk Dump....................................15 ADVANCED FEATURES Fuzzy Search..........................................16 Command Line Switches.................................17 /G - Goto first match.............................17 /H - Hidden Search................................17 /L - List Buffer..................................17 /P - Pause Full Screen............................18 /S - Single Drive.................................18 /V - Verbose Path.................................18 /Z - ZIP Search...................................18 Page 3 CONTENTS IMPLEMENTATION Technical Data........................................19 PIF...................................................20 DOS Error Level.......................................20 CGA Snow Checking.....................................20 Error Messages........................................21 Switch Summary........................................22 Command Line Examples.................................23 SUBST drives..........................................25 Networks..............................................25 DesqView..............................................25 SUPPORT Bug Reports...........................................26 BBS System............................................26 Page 4 INTRODUCTION FIND is an ultra high speed file finding program. It searches the disk drive(s) for the specified files using the standard DOS drive, file name and wild card structure. The registered version will optionally search ZIP (tm) files. The unregistered version contains the following files: o README - Shareware distribution instructions o README.PRN - Document printing instructions o FIND.DOC - This file o FIND.EXE - Uses intelligent output display o FIND.HST - History file FIND versions o FIND.HDR - CompuServe file description header o FIND.KEY - CompuServe file description keywords o FINDINST.EXE - Installation and customization program o SNAPSHOT.EXE - Capture disk sectors for bug reports o ORDER.FRM - Ordering and registration form FIND is not public domain nor free software. The unregistered version is a full speed, complete file finder. Its capacity and performance have not been degraded in any way. Enhancements: o ZIP file search o Fuzzy name search o Installation program o Speed o Color o Single or Multiple drive search o Elapsed time o Exclusive hidden file search o Standard DOS display format o Intelligent output display o Support 80x43 and 132x43 screen sizes o EMS memory used when available o DOS 5 extended disk partition support o Dynamic data segment allocation o Debugging aid o DesqView aware Page 5 FEATURES Standard features: o Install program o Speed o Automatic search of multiple drives o Automatic wild card names o Colors o Elapsed Time o Display uses DOS directory format o Intelligent I/O o Long screen support o Dynamic memory allocation o EMS memory support o Extended disk partitions o SNAPSHOT debugging aid o DesqView aware Registered features: o Fuzzy search for embedded name characters o Search single drive only o Hidden-only file search o Pause when screen is full o Verbose path display o Goto first match o Scroll buffer o CGA snow check control o ZIP file search Page 6 INSTALLATION -------- OVERVIEW -------- FIND incorporates an installation program named FINDINST that will customize FIND for user-specified colors and options. FINDINST is version sensitive, and will complain if the version is incorrect. Unregistered and Registered versions of the software are unique and cannot be mixed. The installation program expects to locate FIND.EXE in the default directory. The file name must be unchanged from the distribution disk to install properly. Once installed, FIND may be freely renamed. Page 7 INSTALLATION ------ COLORS ------ The user may configure the text and inverse video colors used by FIND during operation. The banner colors are fixed and cannot be changed. The default value is to accept whatever colors are found at the cursor location when FIND loads. Invoke FINDINST and choose the Customize Colors option from the main menu. The Normal Text and Inverse Video data are displayed in the colors currently installed in FIND. The un-installed version of FIND defaults to whatever colors are present at the cursor when the program is invoked. FINDINST provides an option on the Colors Menu to restore the defaults. FINDINST displays the default colors in black and white until they are changed. The demo strings are displayed in the new color after each selection. The colors are not installed in FIND until the user exits FINDINST. The user is prompted to enter the hexadecimal values for the text or inverse video option. The number is always entered as a 2 digit number. Results are unpredictable if a single digit is entered. The left number is the Background color. The right number is the Foreground color. 07 = White text on black 17 = White text on blue 70 = Black text on white (inverse) The user may enter any value up to FF, if the blink is desired. The color banners are fixed colors, and may not be changed by the user. TEXT colors are for the file name matches displayed when FIND executes. A file that matches the input argument will be displayed as a TEXT color, even if it is a ZIP file. INVERSE colors are for the subdirectory names and/or ZIP file names that are displayed. A ZIP file holding a member file that matches the input argument is displayed in INVERSE color. The member will be displayed in TEXT color. Page 8 INSTALLATION ----------- DRIVE RANGE ----------- The user may configure FIND to stop searching after a specified drive letter. This will be useful to those who have a network drive and don't wish to search all logical drives. Floppy drives that have been ASSIGNED to a higher letter may also be bypassed using this configuration option. The default is for drive 'Z'. Invoke FINDINST and choose the Drive Search Range option from the main menu. The current highest drive will display as a drive letter. The default value in FIND is 'Z'. The default value for the starting drive is the first hard drive. FIND begins its search with the first hard drive, unless the command line file name contains a drive letter or the first starting drive is set with FINDINST. In either case, the search will automatically increment the drive number until no more drives are left to search. Any drive that appears as a valid DOS disk will be searched. If the user has ASSIGNED a floppy drive as a different drive with a letter higher than the last hard disk, it too will be searched. FIND will pause for a moment if the floppy is empty, and then quit. Installing the highest search drive option will stop FIND from searching assigned drives. Another use is on a very large drive, that goes from C to W or even higher. In spite of FIND's tremendous speed, it will still slow down on a very large drive, particularly so, if that drive contains many ZIP files. The user can limit the search range by using the Highest Search option. Page 9 INSTALLATION -------- SWITCHES -------- The user may configure FIND for any of the command line switches. These switches are actually toggles, and may be overridden on the command line. If the /Z switch is set by FINDINST, using it on the command line will toggle it to OFF for a one-time run of FIND. ----------------- CGA SNOW CHECKING ----------------- FINDINST is invoked without a command line name. An optional command line argument [/OFF] will bypass CGA snow checking for machines that have problems with it, or don't need it. e.g. FINDINST /OFF This switch will force FINDINST to run with snow checking disabled. The user may install this option into FIND by selecting the SWITCHES entry on the first menu. Page 10 STANDARD FEATURES ----------- PERFORMANCE ----------- FIND is significantly faster than other file finders. The following times were derived from the OLR BBS server. Files=32, Buffers=25, No cache, Defragged disk. 827 - normal files 712 - zip files 7259 - zip members 16 Mhz 80286 82mb C: DOS 5.0 ┌──────────┬──────┬───────┐ ZIP │ FIND221 │ :39 │ 1107% │ Search ├──────────┼──────┼───────┤ │ PKFIND10 │ 7:12 │ 100% │ ├──────────┼──────┼───────┤ │ SST 53a │ 7:12 │ 100% │ └──────────┴──────┴───────┘ ┌──────────┬──────┬───────┐ Normal │ FIND221 │ 1.65 │ 276% │ Search ├──────────┼──────┼───────┤ │ PKFIND10 │ 4.56 │ 100% │ ├──────────┼──────┼───────┤ │ SST 53a │ 5.47 │ 83% │ └──────────┴──────┴───────┘ Other file finders were tested but not included. They were unable to read the ZIP files or crashed under the large disk partition. Page 11 STANDARD FEATURES ----------------------- DOS Automatic Wildcards ----------------------- FIND uses the DOS wildcard system for command line arguments. FILENAME. = FILENAME. FILENAME = FILENAME.??? FILE = FILE????.??? FILE. = FILE .??? .EXE = ????????.EXE *123.*45 = ????????.??? . = ????????. .* = ????????.??? *.* = ????????.??? * = ????????.??? *. = ????????. *.X* = ????????.X?? ------------ Elapsed Time ------------ FIND displays the total amount of time required to search all drive(s). Totals are displayed for number of files matching the input argument, total number of files, and number of directories. Page 12 STANDARD FEATURES -------------------- DOS Directory Format -------------------- FIND displays all file data in the DOS directory format. All file data exactly matches the DOS location and format conventions. The file attributes are appended to the standard DOS display as both a hex number and their associated name(s). -------------------------- Intelligent output display -------------------------- FIND determines if DOS I/O redirection to a disk file or printer is active. When redirection is active, all output is displayed a second time using DOS. All screen output except the author banners are then output to the redirected device or file. For the screen, the color attribute found at the starting cursor location is used. FIND automatically uses whichever video page number is active at startup. The user video configuration remains unchanged. ------------------- Long screen support ------------------- FIND uses the screen mode that is active at startup. The 80x43 and 132x43 text screens are supported. 40 column mode is not supported. Page 13 STANDARD FEATURES ------------------------- Dynamic Memory Allocation ------------------------- Internal data segment sizes are allocated on the fly for each logical drive that is searched. Memory is allocated in the exact amount required for each drive. Assume no EMS memory, extended disk partitions and options enabled for a worst-case memory map: ■ 13k code and stack space ■ 128k FAT table ■ 64k path table ■ 64k scroll buffer ■ 64k minimum directory data ■ 16k floating zip segment ------------------------- 349k memory requirements ------------------ EMS memory support ------------------ FIND will utilize up to 12 pages of EMS memory for the path table and scroll buffer. This increases the directory data space by 132k, and reduces a potential out-of-memory error when searching large subdirectories. FIND identifies the EMMXXXX0 device drive signature then allocates EMS memory via DOS interrupt 67h with LIM 3.2 or higher. The current context mapping is saved at entry and is then restored when FIND terminates. FIND currently supports 512 directories, and an unlimited amount of files. FIND can execute as a child process of a parent that uses EMS memory without interfering with the parents' data. Page 14 STANDARD FEATURES ------------------------------- Extended disk partition support ------------------------------- FIND supports DOS disk partitions greater than 32mb. Note that FIND will not work on some non-DOS partitions. A valid DOS boot sector is required on each drive that is searched. Use the DOS FDISK command to DISPLAY the partiton table information when a non-DOS partition is suspected. --------------------- Multiple Drive Search --------------------- FIND will search multiple drives in ascending order starting with the drive specified by the user. If none is specified then the first hard disk is assumed. Note that systems without a hard drive or ram disk must ALWAYS specify the drive letter. FIND defaults to the first drive after the last installed floppy disk. ------------------ SNAPSHOT Disk Dump ------------------ SNAPSHOT.EXE is a debug aid that captures the first 317k of data on the specified disk. The captured data is then written to a floppy disk in drive A: as SNAPSHOT.DAT. When I receive this disk and data, I can reassemble FIND in debugging mode and run on the image of your disk. Caveats: ALL user data within the 1st 317k of the disk will be captured. When I receive the SNAPSHOT dump, the user agrees to release me from all liability associated with his data. Page 15 ADVANCED FEATURES ------------ Fuzzy Search ------------- FIND will support the following command line arguments for embedded characters. Bracketing a string of characters with '*' tells the parser to match that sequence of characters anywhere in the file name and/or extension. Rules: (1) A fuzzy search field must begin with the asterisk (*) in the first position of the name or file extension. (2) At least one valid DOS character must be between the two asterisk brackets. The '?' wildcard is valid. Two consecutive asterisk will return an error. (3) The fuzzy character count can be no more than 8 for the name field, or 3 for the extension field. This count does not include the brackets (*). An overlength name or extension returns an error. A full length field of fuzzy bytes will be interpreted as a non-fuzzy search, and no error will be returned. IB*AB* = IB?????? .??? *IB*.COM = <<IB>> .COM *IB* = <<IB>> .??? *IB*.i* = <<IB>> .i?? *IB*.*i* = <<IB>> . <<i>> *I?M*.COM = <<I?M>> .COM *1234567*.*12* = <<1234567>> . <<12>> *12345678* = 12345678 .??? ; Legal but useless LOTUS.*123* = LOTUS .123 ; Legal but useless *123456789* = ERROR ; Overlength name **.Exe = ERROR ; Double splats together LOTUS.*1234* = ERROR ; Overlength extent *A*B*C.EXE = ERROR ; More than 2 '*' wildcards Page 16 COMMAND LINE SWITCHES Switches are available in the Registered version only. Invoke FINDINST and choose the Command Line Switches option. All the currently supported command line switch states will be displayed. The user is provided with a menu to individually set a switch, or to clear all switches. --------------------- /G - Goto First Match --------------------- When set, FIND will display the drive, path, and file name of the first file that matches the input argument. The default drive and path will be set to that of the matched file, and the program will terminate. ---------------------- /H - Hidden Files Only ---------------------- When set, FIND will search all drive(s) and display only those files which have the SYSTEM or HIDDEN bits set in their directory entry. This search will pick up the DOS system files, and all volume labels. Any other hidden files, such as those installed by copy protection programs will also be displayed. Subdirectories marked as hidden are not displayed. ----------------------- /L - List Scroll Buffer ----------------------- When set, FIND will keep an internal scroll buffer capable of displaying the first 64k of output. When FIND has completed it search, the user may use the cursor keys to scroll up and down in the buffer. The scroll buffer can display at least 819 lines of output without having to redirect the output to a disk file. Larger requirements dictate the use of a disk redirection file. Screen output is turned off when /L is active. I/O redirection cancels the scroll buffer. Page 17 COMMAND LINE SWITCHES Switches are available in the Registered version. -------------------------- /P - Pause for Full Screen -------------------------- When set, FIND will pause when the screen is full and prompt the user to hit any key to continue. The top screen banner will scroll off leaving all of the following screens at full length for output display. Each subsequent screen will also pause when full. The /L option will disable the pause switch. ------------------------ /S - Single drive search ------------------------ When set, FIND will only search a single drive. If no drive letter is given with the command line argument the default drive is searched. A drive letter given in the command line will cause FIND to begin the search at that drive, and stop when the specified drive is complete. ------------------------- /V - Verbose path display ------------------------- When set, FIND will display all subdirectories searched. This is useful for building a list of all subdirectories on all drive(s) searched. This switch is also used if FIND is suspected of not finding a subdirectory. Junk is an indicator of a bug in FIND or other disorder such as a cross-linked subdirectory. -------------------- /Z - ZIP file search -------------------- When set, FIND will open and search all ZIP files. Any ZIP member that matches the input argument will be displayed. The ZIP file holding that member will be displayed in Inverse video, as a subdirectory would be. Page 18 IMPLEMENTATION -------------- Technical Data -------------- Screen performance has been improved by utilizing direct screen writes. Snow prevention is implemented only when the CGA card is detected. Snow checking is disabled when DesqView is active. FIND uses IOCTL function 4408h to check each drive to determine if it is removeable or fixed media. Removeable media drives are read with BIOS, and fixed drives are read with DOS. This bypasses the DOS error message that is generated when the drive door is open. FIND uses the DOS direct read interrupt Int25h. DOS 4 and higher versions deviate from earlier versions in the manner that this interrupt is implemented. FIND automatically uses the extended partition calling convention for DOS 4 and up. FIND operates correctly under MS-DOS 5.0 and the extended size disk partitions it supports. FIND takes over one interrupt vector, Int23h (Control Break). The control break allows the user to quit FIND at any point during the execution. The vector is restored upon any exit from the program. A user entered ^C causes the program to terminate and restore the ^C vector at exit. FIND performs direct reads of the disk and can not damage the integrity of the disk. No writes are done to the disk. There exists a naming conflict with a DOS program of the same name. FIND can be renamed to something else if the DOS program is regularly used. FIND can also be placed in a path that comes before the DOS path. One suggested method of avoiding the naming conflict is to rename the DOS function as FIND!.EXE. FIND is written entirely in Turbo Assembler v2.5. Page 19 IMPLEMENTATION --- PIF --- FIND is 'ill behaved' in screen management functions as direct screen writes are used. FIND is 'ill behaved' for vectors as it takes over Int 23h, the Control-Break vector. -------------- DOS ERRORLEVEL -------------- 0 - No errors 1 - Parsing error 2 - Insufficient Memory 3 - DOS read error 4 - Invalid boot sector 5 - User ^C 6 - Network was found ----------------- CGA SNOW CHECKING ----------------- CGA snow checking will be implemented when a successful test of the retrace hardware has been completed. Some oddball mono-graphics cards do not correctly support the horizontal retrace bit in CGA status port 3DAh. The result is FIND hanging forever waiting for the bit to change state. The test first waits for the retrace bit to become clear, then waits for it to set again. If either test fails, then the retrace hardware is assumed defective and snow checking is disabled. It is also disabled when DesqView is active. Non-standard use of this port can cause unpredictable results. If this is suspected, the user may enable or disable CGA snow checking from the SET SWITCHES panel of FINDINST. This will override the startup tests and force the CGA snow testing into the mode selected by the user. The suggested method is to set CGA snow checking to OFF which will bypass any potential hang condition. If no screen snow is encountered, leave the switch off. Performance is significantly improved with snow checking turned off. Page 20 IMPLEMENTATION -------------- Error Messages -------------- 'Unable to locate or read header for..' o The ZIP file is damaged or corrupted. 'Logic error locating central directory for ' o Internal error in FIND 'Insufficient memory to search this subdirectory' o A subdirectory greater than 64k is being searched and not enough memory is available to load it. o /L switch has requested a scroll buffer and no EMS memory is available. Scroll buffer removes 64k of DOS memory that is available for directory loads. o FIND is trying to run in 384k or less. o FIND is running from another program which has SHELL'd out to DOS 'Insufficient memory to search xxx.ZIP' o Not enough free memory available to load the ZIP file central directory for searching. 'Invalid boot sector for drive x:' o Non-standard DOS boot sector was detected. Bytes per sector is zero or not contined in the set of 64,128,256,512,1024,2048,4096,8192. o Boot sector has returned Zero bytes per sector Specialized RAM disks such as some AST products do not utilize a standard DOS boot sector. Page 21 IMPLEMENTATION ----- Usage ----- Valid switches are: /G /H /L /P /S /V /Z /G - Goto Match The default drive and directory are changed to that of the first matching file. /H - Hidden file(s) Only file attributes that match either the system or hidden bits will be displayed. This switch disables the /Z switch. /L - List scroll buffer The first 819 lines of output are saved in a scrollable buffer. This switch disables the /P switch. I/O redirection cancels this switch. /P - Pause mode The program will pause when the screen is full. /S - Single drive Only a single drive will be searched. If not specified, the default drive is assumed. Otherwise, the first file specified by the user is the only drive searched. /V - Verbose path display Every path searched will be displayed. Useful to build a complete path table of the specified drive(s) by searching for a non- existent file. /Z - search zip files All PKZIP files will be searched for member(s) matching the input argument. Corrupted ZIP files will be identified with an error message. Empty ZIP files are not reported. Page 22 IMPLEMENTATION --------------------- Command Line Examples --------------------- FIND file Start with the default hard drive. No dot defaults to all file extensions. Match all occurrences of 'file????.???' FIND file. Start with the default hard drive. The dot specifies no file extension. Confine match to 'file'. FIND * Start with the default hard drive. Find all files. FIND *.* Start with the default hard drive. Find all files. FIND *.* /H Start with the default hard drive. Find hidden files only. FIND *.* /V Start with the default hard drive. Display all paths as they are scanned. FIND *.* /H /S Start with the default drive. Find hidden files only. Check only the default drive. FIND A:*.* Start with the A: drive. Find all files. Page 23 IMPLEMENTATION --------------------- Command Line Examples --------------------- FIND G:*.* /S Start with the G: drive. Find all files. Check only the G: drive. FIND *.* /H /S > PRN Start with the default hard drive. Find hidden files only. Check only the first hard drive. Redirect output to printer. FIND *.* /H /S > C:\Temp\Dir.Lst Start with the default hard drive. Find hidden files only. Check only the first hard drive. Redirect output to disk file on drive C: FIND *IBM* Find any occurrence of the letters 'IBM' in the file name field. The file extent field defaults to .??? FIND *IB??IO* Find any occurrence of the letters 'IB??IO' in the file name field. The file extent field defaults to '.???'. This example would find IBMBIO.COM. FIND *.*A* Find any occurrence of the letter 'A' in the the file extension field. The letter can be in position 1,2, or 3. The file name field defaults to '????????'. FIND E:Command.Com /G Find COMMAND.COM starting with the E: drive and change to the drive:directory where it was found. Page 24 IMPLEMENTATION ------------ SUBST Drives ------------ DOS allows disk subdirectories to appear as a different drive letter. This is done by using the SUBST command. 'SUBST E: C:\UTIL' will cause the C:\UTIL subdirectory to appear as Drive E:. FIND and many DOS commands will ignore a SUBST drive. Under DOS 5.0, the following commands will not work, or are not recommended with a SUBST drive: Assign Diskcopy Mirror Backup FDisk Recover Chkdsk Format Restore Diskcomp Label Sys -------- NETWORKS -------- The current version FIND does not support network drives. It will complain and exit if a network read error is detected. Support will be added in a future release. -------- DESQVIEW -------- FIND is now DesqView aware. It will make a call to DesqView to determine the location of the DV Alternate Screen Buffer. This display buffer will be used for all screen writes. Cursor control and keyboard routines are done entirely with BIOS. This enables FIND to run in the background in a small window. No polling is done during scroll buffer viewing. This allows DesqView to swap out FIND when it is waiting for user input. The video display routines are coded as 'DesqView Critical'. The message display routine cannot be swapped out until it has completed its function. Other than the color banners, a message display is a single line of text. FIND crashes with old versions of QEMM (v5.00). Page 25 SUPPORT ----------- BUG Reports ----------- Bug reports are welcomed. 1) Make/Version of DOS 2) Copy of AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS 3) Names of TSRs if any, that are loaded 4) Redirected copy of FIND in verbose mode. e.g. FIND <nonexistent.file> /V > DUMP.FIL This provides a list of all subdirectories. 5) Use SNAPSHOT to take a dump of the suspect disk. 6) Run CHKDSK against the failing drive. Attempt to diagnose any bugs by unloading all TSRs and start with as simple a system as possible. ------------ Registration ------------ Please fill out the enclosed ORDER.FRM. Bruce Gavin CompuServe: 70137,3244 GEnie : B.GAVIN ---------- BBS System ---------- Online Reference BBS: (719) 380-9095 (voice) (719) 591-0302 24 hours, 9600 v.42bis / 8N1 Programmers Online Reference Guides Norton Guide databases Available for contract programming or tele-commuting. 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