Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mailrus!iuvax!maytag!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: ABE Source (Part 1/3) & introduction
Message-ID: <103509@looking.on.ca>
Date: 27 Feb 90 18:44:37 GMT
References: <100765@looking.on.ca> <534@sixhub.UUCP> <333@comcon.UUCP> <334@comcon.UUCP> <335@comcon.UUCP>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 25
Class: discussion

You must define "msdos" not "MSDOS" to get the tiny decoder to work.  When
somebody pointed out that many DOS compilers have the upper case one defined
(in the unix world, the tradition was for symbols like "unix" not "UNIX") and
as such I have changed the define for the tiny decoder to MSDOS.  This will
allow compilation by MS C without change.

Otherwise you have the problem of the default text file mode of most C
compilers.  You can use "wb" as the write mode with no ifdefs, but I fear
that might break some other fopens.

The concept of
	type foo | tiny-dabe >abe.arc
is silly.  It is not meant to be a filter in this manner.  You would use
	tiny-dabe <foo >abe.arc

The only time you use it as a filter is if you want to concatenate or sort
it in one line.  You only do this once, to unpack the real source.  It is
not the normal mode of operation.  You have to concat and hand edit parts
for most other decoders, like uudecode.  I was just indicating the elegance
of using the filter if you desired.  It is not a requirement.  You can
certainly combine the files in one step and feed them as input in the next,
just like the other programs!   This is the tiny decoder -- you want creeping
features?
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473