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Text File | 1986-11-20 | 12.4 KB | 529 lines

ARP User's Manual October 7, 1987 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. 1. _G_e_n_e_r_a_l__F_e_a_t_u_r_e_s__o_f__A_R_P__P_r_o_g_r_a_m_s 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 _C_o_n_s_i_s_t_a_n_c_y__o_f__t_h_e__A_R_P__p_r_o_g_r_a_m_s 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. 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 - 2 - similar command lines: 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 - 3 - 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 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_MEMOS. Using AmigaDOS, you would have to do it this way: 1> Rename memo1 OLD_MEMOS 1> Rename memo2 OLD_MEMOS 1> Rename memo3 OLD_MEMOS This kind of thing can get old pretty quickly. Using the ARP Rename, you would simply do 1> Rename memo? OLD_MEMOS The '?' is of course a wildcard that matches any single character. 2. _C_o_m_m_a_n_d_s__a_n_d__T_e_m_p_l_a_t_e_s 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 ? FROMA,,,,,,,,,,TOK,OPTK: ? Type [upto 10 files] To outfile OPT <H(ex) N(umbers)> FROMA,,,,,,,,,,TOK,OPTK: The first thing Type gives you when you supply a question mark is its command template. If that is not enough - 4 - 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 keywords are given in upper case only for clarity - you can use any case you like. - 5 - 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. 3. _E_s_c_a_p_e_s One source of incompatibility between ARP programs (note) and the AmigaDOS programs they are intended to replace is that AmigaDOS programs regard an asterisk inside of quotes as an 'escape' character, one that has a special meaning. Because so many people wanted support for the asterisk as a wildcard something had to go, since the usages would conflict - any given program wouldn't be able to tell whether you meant to use the asterisk as a wildcard or as an escape character. Since, in addition, the use of the "*" as an escape character was an undocumented feature of AmigaDOS, we decided it was worthwhile to sacrifice compatibility on that score. So if you are one of those people that discovered the "*" usage of AmigaDOS, you won't be able to use batch files with that kind of character in it without some editing. ARP supports escapes, in fact, ARP escapes are much more flexible than AmigaDOS escapes, which the ARP escapes include as a subset. The ARP escape character* is a backslash (\), so the only editing you should have to __________ * Actually, you can select your own escape character if it matters that much to you, see the ARP Programmers Manual for more information. NOTE - We reverted to using BCPL-compatible * as the escape char in V1.0 of arp.library; if you prefer to use \, there will be a setup program for V1.1 - 6 - perform on your batch scripts which use AmigaDOS escapes is to replace the asterisks (*) with backslashes (\). ARP recognizes the following characters as special 'escape' characters: \N Newline \T Horizontal Tab \V Vertical Tab \B Backspace \R Return \F Formfeed \E Escape (ascii 27) \Xnn Hex number nn 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 backslash 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 escape 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: __________ * An exception to this is Echo, which always escapes its arguments. This is inconsistant, perhaps, but it turns out to be very convenient. - 7 - 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. 4. _A_R_P__a_n_d__W_i_l_d_c_a_r_d_s 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 __________ * Unix is a trade mark of AT&T. - 8 - 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: 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.