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UPLOADER Page 1 - UPLOADER - Version 1.01 For RemoteAccess 2.00g Database Header File Utility ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ The Legal Stuff ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ UPLOADER is Copyrighted 1993 by Rand Nowell - RaLin Enterprises. This version of UPLOADER is released as a FREE program. Copyright is retained by the author, but you are not required to pay any registration fee to use it. You are free to run it on as many systems as you wish, and to give it to your friends, or even to people you "don't" like. No warranties are expressed or implied, you accept all responsibility for the use of this program, data should be protected before modification. If anything breaks, you got both parts! The author will not be responsible for any damages resulting from your use of this program. BACK UP IMPORTANT DATA BEFORE RUNNING ANY NEW PROGRAM THAT MODIFIES FILES!! ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ Why Did I Write It ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ As many have found out, as will you if you are just getting ready to upgrade RemoteAccess from version 1.11 to 2.0g, when the conversion program does its conversion from FILES.BBS to the new database format, it does not, of course, install Uploaders names into the database header (.HDR) files, which are what's displayed to the user. Rather than go through every single file entry with RAMGR to update things, I wrote UPLOADER. It only updates 2 things, the name of the uploader, and the file DownLoad counter. Thats all I needed at present. It worked well, and I thought others might have a use for it. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ What It Does ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ UPLOADER will work on ONE header file, or ALL header files. Just to make sure we all understand what I'm talking about, with RA's new database format, you have a directory specified as the File Data directory, mine is D:\FILEDATA, and under this RA creates 3 sub-directories. One each for Index files, Text(Descriptions), and Header(.HDR). THe .HDR files are the ones we are interested in here. These contain the information such as Password, Keywords, D/l's etc. and of course, the name of the Uploader. This info is whats displayed to the user who asks for a file listing. I have logged onto many RA systems, who have Uploaded By: and a big Uploader - Beam me up a new name! UPLOADER Page 2 blank. I didn't want that here, I'd rather have Lucy, or PigPen listed as the uploader, than a big blank space. This is where UPLOADER comes in. It will let you specify the name to be placed in the Uploaded By field, and optionaly assign a new count to the Downloads number. UPLOADER.EXE should be placed in a directory that is in your PATH statement. DO NOT place it in the RA Database directory. You need to change to the RA databse HDR directory before running UPLOADER, it expects to find *.HDR files in the current directory. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ How It Works ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Figured you might like to know how to do it! There are three ways to run UPLOADER.... See SWITCHES below for additional actions, or refer to WHATSNEW.DOC 1. UPLOADER ? will present a help screen. 2. UPLOADER FDB#.HDR where the # or ### specifies what file area header file you wish to work on. If you have 44 file areas you will have 44 .HDR files, named FDB1.HDR to FDB44.HDR So if you want to only modify the names and/or D/L count on one file area, this is the command format you use. 3. UPLOADER The program name by itself, will cause ALL FDB*.HDR to be modified. Let me re-phrase that, all .HDR files for a file area that has file descriptions for them. If there are no files, or more accuratly, if there are no entries in the database for that file area, UPLOADER will skip it. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ Switches ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ALSO SEE WHATSNEW.DOC FOR THE ADDITIONS TO THIS VERSION There have been a couple of additions to UPLOADER in this release. The following switches may be used on the command line at starup. They may be upper or lower case, and may be placed anywhere in the command, before, after or before and after the HDR file name. (*) Represents *.* Do NOT use *.*, always use the single asterisk. This tells UPLOADER that what you enter is to be applied to ALL .HDR files. (L) for LITERAL, then uploader name will be written EXACTLY as you enter it. If the L is not used, the default is to place the name in PROPER case, first letter of each name will be capitalized, all the rest will be in lower case. Uploader - Beam me up a new name! UPLOADER Page 3 (R) Search and Replace: You will be prompted for what name to replace, all comparisons will be done in upper case mode, so you can enter this name in any case...upper, lower or mixed. UPLOADER will then change only the records that contain this name, to the new name you specify. Some examples: UPLOADER by itself, prompts for new name and D/L count. Updates all records in ALL HDR files. UPLOADER * Same as above. UPLOADER * R Prompts for name to search and replace. Will check ALL HDR files, replacing only those that match. UPLOADER * L Will update all files,records with the new name exactly as you enter it. Including a HDR file name with any of the above, will restrict actions to that file only. UPLOADER FDB15 R (or r) will prompt for name to replace, and new name, D/L and check records in that file only. Syntax: Examples of valid syntax format.... UPLOADER * R L UPLOADER R * L UPLOADER r fdb12 l UPLOADER fdb13 r l Its really a very relaxed format, you can put switches any way you want them! After you have fired up UPLOADER with either method 2 or 3 you will be prompted for the name to use as uploader. No matter how you enter the name, all upper case, all lower, or a mix, it will be converted to Proper case. In other words, the entry of rand nowell will become Rand Nowell. You can over-ride the Proper casing of the name by including the L switch on the command line. The L stands for "Literal" which means the uploader name will be written "EXACTLY" as you enter it. Next you are asked for a Download Count value, if you do not wish these to change, just enter a zero. Currently there is no way to change the count from say 22 to 0, the minimum number you can change to is 1 (one). I tried a -1 but that didn't work right, and I didn't feel like going to all the code work required to make it do so. So, this is they way it works for now. By the way, the max value allowed is 65535 for D/L, but there is no checking. If you enter a -1 the count will be set to 65535, and if you enter say 66536, it will be set to something like 1000. So, be sure of the number you enter. If you DO make a mistake, just run UPLOADER again with the correct value. Uploader - Beam me up a new name! UPLOADER Page 4 Another note, you cannot JUST change the D/L counter, and you cannot JUST enter a blank for Uploader name, and expect to have it NOT modify the name in the file. Remember, this is just a quick and dirty program. It works, but there are no bells and whistles. Once the Uploader Name has been entered, the UPLOADER starts working. It displays a progress bar which grows for each .HDR file processed, and when its done it will tell you how many .HDR files were processed. This count only lists the files that were actually modified, not the total number of .HDR files in the directory. If you have 56 .HDR files, but 3 of those have no file data in them, then the count will only show 53. Simple enough.. UPLOADER now lists more information on completion. It lists how many records were read, how many written, how many Search & Replace's were done, and how many HDR files were processed. If you have not run UPLOADER before, or in some time, you may see a difference in the number of records read, and those written. This is because UPLOADER now removes "dead" records. It effectivly "PACKS" the HDR file. NOTE: This is NOT a replacement for RAFILE's COMPRESS, as it does NOTHING to the index or description files. But it does help. On a test run with 23 HDR files containing 113 file records it reduced the total byte size of the directory by 15325 bytes. So everytime you run it, it does a little house cleaning. UPLOADER does not modify any entry whose file size is zero (0), if you have entries for files that are Offline, no action is taken on these files, and they are not counted in the Files Written total. There is a way to actually PACK the HDR files, without actually doing any modification. Run as UPLOADER * R When prompted for the name to replace, enter a name you "KNOW" does not exist, something like Lisa Magillicuddy, and enter anything for the new name. UPLOADER will never find this fictional name, thus no changes will be made, but while it is searching it will remove any empty records. I think that about covers it. Like I said, it works for me! And if it works for you, then outstanding! Have added a companion program, LISTREC.EXE, which will list the HDR files to the screen or printer. See LISTREC.DOC ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ You Tell Me ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ If you find UPLOADER useful to you, I'd like to hear about it. If you would like to see it progress into something more, tell me! Uploader - Beam me up a new name! UPLOADER Page 5 It is very possible I could set it up to allow you to TAG files you wish to work with, allow more data to be changed, mabey allow new information for each tagged .HDR file as it comes up in the list..... I am open to suggestions and/or requests, if no intrest is shown, then this is probably where it will end. If response is positive, I will consider upgrading the UPLOADER. And I will try to keep this a FREE program, Sysops need to save a buck here and there <grin>. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ Contacting The Author ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ If you wish to contact me with requests, suggestions, party invitations.... And I'll accept a complaint or two, I can be reached via the following. ECHOS: RA SUPPORT - RA UTILS - SHAREWARE Voice: (510) 651-0253 BBS : (510) 651-0253(4 second pause)3322 Yep, its a pain. One line for voice, BBS, Mailer. The pause and code are required to access the Mailer/BBS...Sorry, hope to have it fixed soon! NetMail: 1:161/710 If you NetMail, you will have to poll for your reply, usually within 24 hours. Free program ya know. If the reply does not get picked up, it will go out routed. Snail Mail: Rand Nowell RaLin Enterprises 40728 Sundale Dr. Fremont, Ca. 94538 USA ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ Credits and Thanks! ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Thanks to Charlie Merryman who suggested the ability to enter names any way you want, and being able to search and replace. <eof UPLOADER.DOC> Uploader - Beam me up a new name!