TextTools Release 3

of 18-Nov-96. Copyright (c) 1996 by Rune Berg. All rights reserved.

Introduction .. Terms .. Tools Summary .. Package Contents .. Changes .. Important Notes .. Feedback


INTRODUCTION

TextTools is a collection of ASCII text filters and other goodies. Many of the programs process text-format tables, and offer powerful and unique functionality.

All TextTools programs run from the command line, or from batch files.


TERMS

All TextTools programs and documentation are Copyright (c) 1996 by Rune Berg. All rights reserved.

TextTools Release 3 is Freeware. It may be freely distributed and used for non-commercial purposes only. It may be included on Shareware/Freeware/PD CD-ROM collections, though. It must not be modified in any way, and must be distributed in its entirety.

Please note that future TextTools releases may well be Shareware.

Disclaimer: Rune Berg disclaims all warranties as to this software and its documentation, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, functionality or data integrity or protection.


TOOLS SUMMARY

Table-oriented programs
tcols project and transform table columns
trows select table rows that fulfill given conditions
tsort sort table on result of projection/transform
tuniq print lines that evaluate uniquely on tcols-style expressions
-- NEW PROGRAM! --
tand print table entries present in two files
tjoin database-style join of two tables


Programs for copying part of files
first copy first n lines of file
last copy last n lines of file
lines copy specifically numbered lines of file
middle copy middle part of file


Other text filters
eol convert between DOS and UNIX end-of-line styles
xtabs expand tabs to spaces
itabs insert tabs in place of spaces


Miscellaneous
lsx list directory contents grouped on file basename
sum sum up integers in file
acho echo with ANSI codes for colour etc.
closure compute closure of graph of text nodes
create create empty files
dump dump file contents in hex/decimal/octal
numl number lines in text file
-- NEW PROGRAM! --


PACKAGE CONTENTS

The readme.txt file tells you to start with doc_html/tt_r3.htm (this file).

The doc_html directory contains documentation for the TextTools programs.

The exe.dos directory contains the DOS executables.


CHANGES

General: All TextTools now give a basic description of functionality, when invoked with the -v option. Also, all documentation files have been cleaned up, to look right in both Netscape (2.0 or better) and Internet Explorer (2.0 or better).

PROGRAM VERSION CHANGES SINCE RELEASE 2
acho 1.10 (General).
closure 1.10 (General).
create 1.20 Added -n option: write a newline to each created file.
Added -z option: write a DOS end-of-file char. to each created file.
dump 1.20 Added -sN option: begin dumping at byte N.
Added -bN option: dump N bytes.
Fixed bug: default widths for dec/oct weren't used.
eol 1.10 (General).
first 1.10 (General).
itabs 1.10 Now removes superflous spaces.
last 1.10 (General).
lines 1.10 (General).
lsx 1.20 (General).
numl 1.00 -- NEW PROGRAM! --
middle 1.10 (General).
sum 1.10 (General).
tand 1.10 (General).
tjoin 1.10 (General).
tcols 1.30 Added $n expr: yields current data line number.
Improved prf function: now does field width, left-just., integers, etc.
Added dup function: duplicate argument(s).
Added $e(/NAME/) expr: yields value of environment variable NAME.
Changed trl, trt, and tr functions: they now trim any whitespace, not just blanks
trows 1.30 Same as for tcols.
tsort 1.30 Same as for tcols.
tuniq 1.30 NEW PROGRAM!
xtabs 1.10 (General).


IMPORTANT NOTES

Though well tested, expect some bugs.

All included executables run in real-mode, and don't use expanded or extended memory. Thus, some of the programs have limited capacity.

All included executables are debug builds, i.e. they're compiled with asserts etc., to help in catching bugs. This means they run a little slower than they really could.


FEEDBACK

Ok, hope you find these programs useful. Any feedback is much appreciated.

E-mail to:

Snail-mail to:

Cheers,
- Rune


End of document