Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL!W8SDZ From: W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (Keith Petersen) Newsgroups: comp.sys.zenith.z100 Subject: SIMTEL20 MSDOS file description database updated Message-ID: Date: 14 Sep 88 21:26:00 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 45 The database of filenames and directories is built with a TOPS-20 program, written by Frank Wancho, called NDIR. It is used to create our FILES.IDX lists in the top-level PD archive directories. I have a Unix AWK script which inputs from the FILEX.IDX list and another list which contains only filenames and short one-line descriptions. The resultant matches are outputted by AWK to a third file (in this case SIMIBM.IDX). AWK also outputs to another file all files for which there is no match (NODESCR.IDX). The beauty of doing it this way is that a completely new database is generated each month. Even if I move files from one directory to another (such as reoganizing things to split system utilities into subcategories) the descriptions follow right along with them. The field names and lengths of SIMCPM.IDX are: Name Length Drv 4 Directory 17 Name 12 Vr# 2 Size# 6 Type# 1 Date# 6 Description 46 The one-line descriptions contained in the files SIMIBM.ARC or SIMIBM.IDX with format as described in SIMIBM.INF in the SIMTEL20 directory PD1: are ideally suited for DBASE III. To construct a DBASE III database for the files, after the appropriate structure has been entered via the CREATE command, the DBASE III command APPEND FROM SIMIBM.IDX DELIMITED loads the database. The full power of DBASE III is now available for searching through the MSDOS archives on SIMTEL20. Many thanks to Larry Armijo for this information on dBASEIII. --Keith Petersen Maintainer of the CP/M and MSDOS archives at SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL [26.0.0.74] Arpa: W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL Uucp: {att,decwrl,harvard,ucbvax,uunet,uw-beaver}!simtel20.army.mil!w8sdz