Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!maytag!water!ljdickey
From: ljdickey@water.waterloo.edu (Lee Dickey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Review of "ff"
Keywords: file finder
Message-ID: <2484@water.waterloo.edu>
Date: 30 Jun 89 20:52:23 GMT
References: <1119@syma.sussex.ac.uk>
Reply-To: ljdickey@water.waterloo.edu (Lee Dickey)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 57


	Review of "ff" 
	posted recently by
	f-leoe@ifi.uio.no (Lars-Erik 0sterud)

The program "ff" ( for File Finder ) is a little short on
documentation, but I did figure it out.  It searches all
directories, or the drive you specify, for files with the
name you give.

For instance, I asked it to find "maple.ttp" on drive C,
and it did... both instances of it.  I watched as it searched
through every directory on drive "C:" and it left this list
on the screen

	C:\MAPLE.TTP
	C:\BIN\MAPLE.TTP

because I have two copies of the file.

There is a bug.  I had to specify one extra non-blank character
at the end of the command line.  In order to restrict the search
to drive "x", according to the very short help message, one has
to specify the string   "/Sx".
So, I tried

	ff maple.ttp /sc

Well, this did not work.  It looked like the "C" was being ignored.
What gave me the clue was that when I typed

	ff maple.ttp

the program seemed to be looking for "MAPLE.TT".  So I now tried
the command line:

	ff maple.ttp /scy
and
	ff maple.ttp /sCy

The second one worked.  The first did not.

The program is quite verbose.  I gives the name of the author
every time, and it tells me to press any key to continue.  This
is broken.  What I had to do was press the RETURN key to continue.
It also tells you how many files names it searched through.
I would have preferred a quiet little two lines, and that is all.

It seems to require exact names.  I would like it to match patterns.
This little program has potential.  I think it could be worked into
a proper "find" program, I think.  Try it!

-- 
    L. J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo.
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