University of Vaasa, Finland, Linux Pentium, node number 193.166.120.5 (garbo.uwasa.fi) has a large collection of shareware, freeware and public domain programs which are available by anonymous ftp (file transfer program) and WWW (World Wide Web). This information file ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/0newts63.txt contains news about the programs in the /pc/ts directory (in reverse order). .................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi/ archives 193.166.120.5 Department of Accounting and Business Finance ; University of Vaasa mailto:ts@uwasa.fi ; FIN-65101, Finland Spam foiling in effect. My email filter autoresponder will return a required email password to users not yet in the privileges database. .................................................................... N e w s o f 2 0 0 3 Sat 27-Dec-2003: Very minor update 243153 Dec 27 2003 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsbat.zip tsbat.zip Useful MS-DOS batch files and tricks, T.Salmi, linked Sat 27-Dec-2003: The new NT/2000/XP FAQ items still come relevant at a fair pace. Hence made the next update available, as usual as 56675 Dec 27 2003 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tscmd.zip tscmd.zip Useful NT/2000/XP script tricks and tips, T.Salmi, linked With the version number the file is ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tscmd14.zip This time added the following items 39} Is there a subroutine to convert a variable into uppercase? 40} How do I get the number of arguments given to a script? 41} How can I create a zero-byte file? How do I test for it? 42} What is the subroutine for testing a filename for wildcards? 43} Is there a way of counting the number of files in a folder? 44} How do I get the first 68 columns from a text file? Fri 19-Dec-2003: Another minor update to adjust some of the information 243286 Dec 19 2003 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsbat.zip tsbat.zip Useful MS-DOS batch files and tricks, T.Salmi or, alternatively, with a version number as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsbat79b.zip Fri 19-Dec-2003: Made the next update of my FAQ-like collection of NT/2000/XP script tricks and tips. It now is in version 13. Available without the version number as 53884 Dec 19 2003 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tscmd.zip tscmd.zip Useful NT/2000/XP script tricks and tips, T.Salmi Added the following new items 34} How can I remove the quote characters from a line? 35} How can I substitute the second field on each line of my file? 36} I start a program from my script and it hogs my command window. 37} How can I insert a line in the middle of a file with a script? 38} How can I set and test the errorlevel within a script file? Essentially rewrote 10} How can I change the environment variable values within a FOR loop? to explain delayed variable extension. Corrected some minor typos (and probably made new ones). Thu 11-Dec-2003: I have updated 50399 Dec 11 2003 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tscmd.zip tscmd.zip Useful NT/2000/XP script tricks and tips, T.Salmi, linked Also available with a version number as 50399 Dec 11 2003 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tscmd12.zip tscmd12.zip Useful NT/2000/XP script tricks and tips, T.Salmi Added two auxiliary Turbo Pascal program executables to help in complicated date calculations. The code is based on what I have in my separate Turbo Pascal FAQ tsfaqp.zip, item #119. It is true that these conversions can, and have been programmed in straight script by others. I did not wish duplicate that work. Even more importantly, a compiled program is fast if there is, say hundreds of file datetime stamps to browse in some task. DATE2NUM.EXE Date into a Julian date number NUM2DATE.EXE A Julian date number into a date Added the items 31} How many days ago was 31.12.2003? What date it was a 100 days ago? 32} How can I convert a decimal number to binary, octal, hexadecimal? 33} How can I convert a binary, octal, hexadecimal into a decimal? The item "14} Help! My old batch files won't work since there is no choice" now presents the CHOOSE.EXE alternative. The advantage of CHOOSE.EXE over SET /P is that the former can handle timed default input. The CHOOSE.EXE program was included in the package. Thu 11-Dec-2003: I have updated IBM2LAT1.EXE IBM PC Scandies to Latin1 chars and added LAT12IBM.EXE Latin1 IBM chars to PC Scandies The files are for corverting text files between the ISO-8859-1 Latin1 and the IBM character sets. Used a more comprehensive conversion table incrasing the number of transformations from just the Scandies 6 to the more genral 34. Thu 11-Dec-2003: Updated CHOOSE.EXE "Ask questions in batch/script files". It is a part of ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsutlf17.zip Timo's 6th utility set (advdate,choose,deledir,strings,strmemo,) Where necessary, the other programs in the package now notify about detecting a Windows_NT OS environment variable. However, the other programs in the package are irrelevant from the main point this update (i.e. the generic CHOOSE). Sat 6-Dec-2003: At the early stages of a FAQ material accumulates fairly rapidly. I have made an update ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tscmd.zip Useful NT/2000/XP script tricks and tips, T.Salmi, linked Also available with a version number as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tscmd11.zip Added the following new items: 21} Do you have pointers to additional script material and tips? 22} How do I capture the current directory name into a variable? 23} How do I get the n:th and the last line of a text file? 24} How do I get the m:th item on the n:th line of a text file? 25} How can I quote with e.g. "> " an entire message? 26} How do I get the length of a string into a variable? 27} How can I remove all the blank lines from a text file? 28} How to convert a file written in IBM PC characters into LATIN1? 29} How do I drop the first two characters of a string, and so on? 30} Can one calculate the difference between two times in a script? Renamed the first item to be "General information of this script tricks file package" and right-justified the item's text. Changed the name of the companion WHERE.CMD "Find a file anywhere on a drive" to WHEREIS.CMD. Added the option to sort the results by the file datetime stamp. Therefore also changed the output order of the files found datetime stamp to YYYY.MM.DD HH:MM. Added the file attribute field. Added documentation comments to the source. Added TSCMDIDX.TXT "The questions index separately". Added M_TSCMD.CMD "A makefile to build this package" to demonstrate among other things making a ZIP file with file comments included. Fri 28-Nov-2003: For some time now I have have considered to familiarize myself better with the NT/2000/XP scripting by starting a new FAQ collection. So here we go: 20353 Nov 28 2003 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tscmd.zip tscmd.zip Useful NT/2000/XP script tricks and tips, T.Salmi, linked or, alternatively, with a version number as 20353 Nov 28 2003 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tscmd10.zip tscmd10.zip Useful NT/w2k/XP script tricks and tips, T.Salmi However, it is recommended that you link to the file without the version number. The main contents 1CMDFAQ.TXT is a text file in a mailbox format. Thus you can also read it indexed with any suitable mail program. This is the first version of TSCMD. One purpose of the early release is to set up the framework for this FAQ. The following items were included to start with: 1} How get today's date elements into environment variables? 2} On Windows XP how do you stop the script files from closing? 3} How can I customize the Command Prompt Window with script commands? 4} How can I test is it on MSDOS/Win3..9x/Me or NT/2000/XP? 5} How do I get a fully qualified path name of my script? 6} How does one get yesterday's date? 7} How can I test if two files agree in size and datetime stamp? 8} How do I find all the files made at of after YYYYMMDD HHMM? 9} How can I suppress script error messages altogether? 10} How can I change the environment variable values within a FOR loop? 11} How do I retain my original code page in these scripts? 12} How can I rename all my .JPG files sequentially in a directory? 13} How do I get the current day of the week? 14} Help! My old batch files won't work since there is no choice. 15} Is it possible to echo without linefeed like the Unix echo -n? 16} How can I get the time without having to press enter? 17} How can I avoid the potential "ECHO is off." in echoing %myvar% 18} How does one build re-usable script function modules? 19} How can one build a delay / sleep / wait procedure for a script? 20} Is is possible to right-justify numbers or words in a script? Wed 29-Oct-2003: Just a very minor update correcting some typos etc 238644 Oct 29 00:39 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsbat.zip tsbat.zip Useful MS-DOS batch files and tricks, T.Salmi, linked ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsbat.zip or, alternatively, with a version number as 238644 Oct 29 00:39 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsbat79a.zip tsbat79a.zip Useful MS-DOS batch files and tricks, T.Salmi Sat 11-Oct-2003: When a FAQ collection has been around for long, the corrections and additions come far apart. Furthermore, the potential new tasks usually can be solved with minor variations of the old material. Such rehashing does not truly add anything. Therefore, the latest update of my MS-DOS batch FAQ really mostly is cosmetic even if it has been almost a year since the last update. The update is available as 238550 Oct 11 2003 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsbat.zip tsbat.zip Useful MS-DOS batch files and tricks, T.Salmi, linked or, alternatively, with a version number as 238550 Oct 11 2003 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsbat79.zip tsbat79.zip Useful MS-DOS batch files and tricks, T.Salmi Thu 29-May-2003: I have prepared a number of Windows icons for my own usage. Such a collection might be of some general interest so I made a new package 38945 May 29 20:31 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsicon10.zip tsicon10.zip Timo's Windows icons collection, T.Salmi This material is freeware for private personal usage only. Mon 6-Jan-2003 : The default names of the text versions of Garbo archives index files were changed at the beginning of 2003. Therefore I have made an update of the Garbo index searches utilities 22812 Jan 6 10:33 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsgarb13.zip tsgarb13.zip Garbo related utilities for the PC (ffind,gfind), T.Salmi More importantly, added the following new batch for added flexibility to handle also other than the MS-DOS file indexes (Windows 3.1x, Windows 95/98, Unix, and Sinclair QL) at Garbo: FFINDB.BAT FileFIND index-search batchshell I do not know how much the gentle Garbo users will need these, but I need then at least for my own maintenance functions. Mon 6-Jan-2003: I have updated some of the information and the link pointers within 125721 Jan 6 10:34 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsfaqn.zip tsfaqn.zip Questions from Usenet and Timo's answers, linked alternatively available with a new version number 125721 Jan 6 10:34 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsfaqn50.zip tsfaqn50.zip Questions from Usenet and Timo's answers Mon 6-Jan-2003: Updated again 31689 Jan 6 09:44 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsans.txt tsans.txt Answers about ts-packages, linked from /pc/ts, T.Salmi Also available with the version number as 31689 Jan 6 09:44 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsans102.txt tsans102.txt Answers to some recurring questions about TS-packages Sat 4-Jan-2003: Made a notification update 30871 Jan 4 22:34 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsans101.txt tsans101.txt Answers to some recurring questions about TS-packages This file has been superseded by a set of more modern-day WWW-based set FAQ pages including : Miscellaneous questions, information and comments about Timo's programs etc http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/garbo.html#faqtimo : Some Frequently Asked Garbo Questions http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/garbo.html#faq : Latest news about the files in /pc/ts directory ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/0news_ts.txt : Answers to some frequently asked personal questions http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/personal.html Wed 1-Jan-2003: The older news about the files in the /pc/ts directory http://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts.html are available as : ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/0newts62.txt The news announcements of 2002 about ts-programs, T.Salmi : and so on, backwards.