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From: jai@im4u.UUCP (Jai Srinivasan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Improve response time with paths
Message-ID: <2408@im4u.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Nov-87 09:40:55 EST
Article-I.D.: im4u.2408
Posted: Wed Nov 11 09:40:55 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Nov-87 22:30:41 EST
References: <15000048@silver>
Reply-To: jai@im4u.UUCP (Jai Srinivasan)
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 59

In article <15000048@silver> creps@silver.bacs.indiana.edu proposes 
the use of a ramdisk to store BAT files that start up programs and have
the ramdisk as the first directory of the PATH variable.  The advantage
being that in most cases most directories of the PATH do not need to
be searched as the BAT file will be found on the ramdisk and it will
have the entire directory name of the program that needs to be run.

Here is an alternative to using BAT files.  Get CED and use its synonym
feature.  In addition to being an excellent command line editor, CED
can store abbreviations for commonly used commands.  It has the ability
to re-order parameters from the command line (the %1 .. %9 of BAT files)
and it can expand a command into more than 1 DOS command.  Best of all,
it is in public domain and virtually bug-free.  (An updated commercial
version called PCED is also available from its author.)

Here is a sample of the power of CED.  To those accustomed to aliases
on a UNIX system, there is nothing novel in this.  Others may find it
useful though.

SYN     av   c:\etc\archvrs\pkxarc /v
SYN     am   c:\etc\archvrs\pkarc /Oc /m
SYN     ae   c:\etc\archvrs\pkxarc 
SYN     dcp  for %i in (c:\bin\misc\list.com c:\bin\misc\ls.exe c:\bin\misc\cd.exe) do copy %i d:

Now av is an abbreviation for "c:\etc\archvrs\pkxarc /v".  The rest of 
the command line after av is plugged in after "c:\etc\archvrs\pkxarc /v".
Similarly for the am and ae.  The last command re-initializes my ramdisk
by copying specific files into it.

A more complicated example:

SYN Starttimer   C:\Etc\Norton\Timer /c%1 start /n /l

Now typing "StartTimer 2" causes the command 

C:\Etc\Norton\Timer /c2 start /n /l

to be executed.  Other synonyms can juggle around parameters even more.
Finally an example that causes one command to execute more than one DOS
command:

REM Replace the file (first argument) by the output of the command
REM  (arguments 2 thru the last argument) with input the file of
REM the first argument.  Useful for filters that do not accept files
REM but require input from stdin.
REM
REM Eg: rplc thisfile sort OR rplc thisfile tr A-Z a-z

SYN rplc c:\bin\misc\mv -i %1 !CED!_!-.tmp ;%2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 < !CED!_!-.tmp > %1 ;del !CED!_!-.tmp

The ';' (the "chain character" of CED) separates 2 commands.  So the file
%1 is first renamed to !CED!_!-.tmp, then the filter is executed and its 
output sent to %1 and finally the temporary file !CED!_!-.tmp is deleted.

--------
Jai Srinivasan, UUCP: {gatech,harvard,ihnp4,pyramid}!ut-sally!im4u!jai
ARPA:  		      jai@im4u.UTEXAS.EDU, jai@sally.UTEXAS.EDU

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