"Einstein Monthly" Public Domain Software Column NSWP Tips - Part 1 NSWEEP, NSWP, NSWP205 or NS (for New Sweep) is a very popular file handling utility. The program is commonly used for the selective transfer of files from one disk to another using the "T" (Tag) and "M" (Mass copy) options. There are, however, some available features that are not explained in the menu, nor in the document file. In this article we introduce Einsteiners to the 'log on' procedure and the "Y" option. 1. LOG ON: When you have invoked the program you may 'log on' to a disk in another drive or to a user area by pressing the "L" key. The program responds with the following prompt: New drive / user / mask? You may log on to a new disk drive (the drives are only recognised by capital letter e.g. A, B, C, D, etc), or log on to a new user area, or display only the files that match a given "mask". You may also do all these things at once. The following are a number of examples of what happens when you respond to the prompt: New drive / user / mask? Type 'B' - This logs on to drive B in the current user area. Type '2' - This logs on to the current drive in user area 2. Type 'B3' - This logs on to drive B in user area 3. Type 'B*' - This logs on to drive B in ALL the user areas, Type '*.COM' - This displays only files that are on the logged drive and with a file extension ' .COM '. Type 'C12:*.XBS'- This displays only files that are on drive C in user area 12 and with a file extension ' .XBS '. Type '10:B*.*' - This displays only files that are on the logged drive in user area 10 which begin with B (e.g. BACKUP.COM). It is not generally realised that you can call up most of these features when you run the program from DOS. Assuming that your version is NSWP.COM you can run the program and come up automatically on drive B, user area 3, and ready to view all files that end with ' .DOC ' by typing the following at the DOS prompt: NSWP B3:*.DOC. 2. THE "Y" OPTION: The "Y" option enables you to change the status of a file but there is no guidance given within the program or in the document file on how this feature can be used. Before we proceed it is necessary to briefly go over some of the background on filenames. Within the Xtal DOS and CP/M operating systems a filename consists of a 1 to 8 character name optionally followed by a period and a 1 to 3 character extension, as in NSWP.COM where NSWP is the name and COM is the extension. Xtal DOS and CP/M uses what is called the 'high bit' or 'parity bit' of some of the filename characters in order to flag a file as being of a special type, like a read-only file (which cannot be easily erased or overwritten) or a system file (which will not appear in a DIR listing, making it sort of invisible). The file status option allows you to set or reset the file status in an easy fashion. What this means is that you can conveniently make normal read-write files into read-only or invisible files and vice versa, plus some other things. The hey word here is conveniently, because the ease with which this option can be used is in direct contrast to utilities like STAT.COM which are much more difficult to use. When you press the "Y" option you should get the following prompt: Which flags (1-4, R, S, A)? The word 'flags' refers to the parity bits of the filename characters. Selecting 1, 2, 3 or 4 will set the parity bit of the first, second, third or fourth filename name characters, respectively. Choosing R, S or A will set the first, second or third parity bit of the filename extension character (the part that follows the period). The R stands for read-only, the S for system and the A for archive. Choosing anything besides the seven choices listed will reset all the filename flags, making the file a read-write file once more. The following are some examples of responses to the prompt: Type R This sets the file to read-only status. Type S This makes the file invisible to the a directory listing. Type 1 This sets the flag of the first. Type 23RS This sets the 2nd, 3rd, read-only and system flags. Type RA This sets the read-only and archive flags. Type 0 This sets the file back to read-write status. There is one other thing that you need to know before you attempt to use the "Y" option: it only works on tagged files, so the first step is to use the "T" option to tag all the files that need a change of status, even if you are only changing the status of a single file. This allows you to set the status of a number of files at once as long as they are all to be give the same attribute (like read-only). With a graphics machine like the Einstein the characters corresponding to the flags you set become highlighted when you set them. This highlighting can be used in combination with the 'A' flag to aid in backing up your files because you will be able to see which files have been changed since the last backup. This is how you proceed: The first time you back a disk up, you will need to tag all the files and copy them to the backup disk using the "M" (Mass copy) option. When the copy is complete, use the "A" (Again) option to re-tag those same files again. Next choose the "Y" option to change the file status of the tagged files. When you see the prompt, Which flags (1-4,R.S,A)? choose 'A' (Archive) and all the files will have a highlighted last character, indicating that you have backed them up. A sort of visual aid. The next time you go back to your disk, all you need to do is to look for filenames that do not have the last character highlighted. Since these files will have been created or changed since the last backup you can then tag and copy them to the backup disk using the "M" option. When the transfer is complete use the "A" (Again) option to retag the files that were just backed up and then set the archive flags using the same procedure as described above. Jim Ellacott U.K.E.U.G ÿ¼BF !)19AIQYaiqyÍ. Ãþ¯2|2\ÍÝ$.:&UNRV2#•!TRFC7l}-VERRMSU*WIDWRNmÁ#SETLIM¯ƒ+TRFC8æ®)TRNNNYY