Text 8914, 141 rader
Skriven 2007-01-11 10:29:00 av WAYNE CHIRNSIDE
     Kommentar till en text av BOB KLAHN
Ärende: Re: here again
======================
-=> BOB KLAHN wrote to ROSS CASSELL <=-

 RC> Hello bob!

 RC> 05 Jan 07 12:02, you wrote to me:

 RC>>> The way the data is stored in the file.

 RC>>> messages.dat is a binary data file, each message is stored
 RC>>> in records that are 128k max.

 bk>>  Every damn thing on your computer is binary.

 RC> Let me put it to you in simple language..

 BK>  I have read your message. I am still waiting for the simple
 BK>  language.

 RC> Reading in a text file is done differently than a file that
 RC> is a typed binary file, with multiple records.

 BK>  Typed binary file?????

QWK packets can be decompressed as either binary or text files 
in Linux with appropriate options.
Failure to do so can lead to confusion and failure.

 RC> While my programming skills are limited and majority of it
 RC> was dealing with TP7 under DOS for BBS and door programs,
 RC> the way I would parse a text config file to read in data
 RC> was alot different from reading in data from various
 RC> variables from a individual record from a file that
 RC> contained many records.

 BK>  And I recently wrote a program to sort through saved fido
 BK>  messages, to determine how many had certain text. Very easy to
 BK>  do. Written in basic, I didn't even bother to compile it.

I would use PERL but similarly not compile.

 BK>  And reading in variables has little to do with text files in
 BK>  Fido. All you need is beginning and ending markers, and not even
 BK>  that if you start each msg with data identifying the length of
 BK>  the msg. Then all you need is a start identifier. Only for the
 BK>  first msg if you really want to do it that way.

 RC> Think of these files as a single file, each record
 RC> represents a single page of data, so these files have many
 RC> pages.

 RC> A simple text file and a great example of one would be a
 RC> common batch file or if you run a Windows NT variant,
 RC> AUTOEXEC.NT, the whole file is one single page.

 RC> Under linux, fstab is a great example of a plain text file
 RC> as well as the myriad of *.rc files you would find in your
 RC> ~ directory.

 RC> Here is a source code snippet to read in messages.dat..

 RC> Type Array25 = Array[1..25] of Char;
 RC>      HdrRec = Record

 BK>  ...

 RC> end.

 RC> But this is only the begining, you will need to read in all
 RC> the message as 128 byte blocks and convert it for editing.
 RC> It's an array of char, not strings, and it uses #227 for an
 RC> End of Line, rather then the conventional carriage
 RC> return/line feed.

 BK>  What an overcomplicated piece that is.

I concur and am less than impressed with this example.

 RC> Sorry Bob, pure text files dont take this compexity.

 BK>  Nor does messages.dat. Just convert the #227 to cr/lf and you
 BK>  got it.

Yup.

 BK>  Guthrie's Change.exe changes &HE3 to &H0D&H0A with no problem.
 BK>  Giving you cr/lf.

 BK>  Now there is an &HE1&H0A near the beginning of every msg. Just
 BK>  take that as a message marker, and count back the number of
 BK>  lines preceeding that in every msg, a constant, and you have
 BK>  your text file markers. You could write every msg as a seperate
 BK>  file if you wanted. There is also a number before the &E1*0A
 BK>  that appears to relate to the length of the file, but I didn't
 BK>  bother to determine whether that was the whole file length or
 BK>  just the message text length.

 BK>  All doable with a simple basic language program.

Or PERL.

 bk>>  Anyway you want to define it, they use plain text some of the
 bk>>  time at least.

 RC> I was disputing file types, not the appearance of data.

 BK>  And you overcomplicated it.

Sometimes that can be most fun.
Maurice Kinal for instance sometimes a bit too helpful
and spoils my fun ;-)

 RC> you can put literally any EXE file on your computer into a
 RC> file viewer and see ascii text, the presence of ascii text
 RC> does not make it a ascii text file.

 BK>  When all the information is ascii of some sort, and serves no
 BK>  purpose other than displaying the data to read, it's ascii.

 RC>>> Why are you being obtuse.

 bk>>  Why are you being nasty?

 RC> Didnt know I was.

 BK>  I wasn't being obtuse. I happen to disagree with you.

I say again.
You are my very worst nightmare.
A church going man with a brain.
You too Bradley, and Maurice and any others so equipped.

I being acute now ;-)

Hey Bob, could you have your name legally changed to something else?
I'm dyslexic and find myself often spelling Bob backwards.
TIA


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