OT: Looking for a Utility

Spehro Pefhany · Jun 21, 2005

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:42:16 -0700, the renowned Jim Thompson
<thegreatone@example.com> wrote:

In UltraEdit you are actually pasting in the text file right in front
of your eyes, plus you can always look into the "Recent Files" list
within UltraEdit.

Ctrl-End takes you right to the end of the current file, so
Ctrl-End-Alt-F-U-I will get the cursor positioned at the end of the
current file and ready to insert a new file.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

Arie de Muynck · Jun 21, 2005

"Jim Thompson" ...

I'm looking for a utility that can, in Windows Explorer, emulate the
DOS equivalent of:

copy header.ps+file1.ps+file2.ps+file3.ps+... +footer.ps total.ps

If the files were generated in the proper sequence into an empty directory
(not unlikely) then running:

copy /b %thatdir%\*.ps total.ps

just below that directory should do the trick, since it appends all files in
the order in which they are in the directory. Be sure to use a DOS version
that understand long filenames (WIN2K+ at least works).

You could use a batch file with a line like this, and add it with a nice
name to the function list for handling directories. Open Explorer, then open
menus:

Explorer -->
Tools
Folder options
File Types
File Folder
Advandced
New

Then a right-click on a directory shows your option to merge all it's *.ps
files.

Arie de Muynck

Jim Thompson · Jun 21, 2005

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:27:31 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
<speffSNIP@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:42:16 -0700, the renowned Jim Thompson
thegreatone@example.com> wrote:

In UltraEdit you are actually pasting in the text file right in front
of your eyes, plus you can always look into the "Recent Files" list
within UltraEdit.

Ctrl-End takes you right to the end of the current file, so
Ctrl-End-Alt-F-U-I will get the cursor positioned at the end of the
current file and ready to insert a new file.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

Chuck Harris · Jun 21, 2005

Jim Thompson wrote:

The only problem is when after the 10th file in your concatenation
stream, you forget whether the next is the 10th, or the 11th.

One postscript program looks just like another...

It is always better to have the list of instructions the computer
is going to use sitting in front of you for review.

-Chuck

In UltraEdit you are actually pasting in the text file right in front
of your eyes, plus you can always look into the "Recent Files" list
within UltraEdit.

...Jim Thompson

How many levels deep does that stack go? Suppose you have been doing
this quite alot, and you have a stream of 30 recently opened files in
the stack. It can become quite a challange to pick out the beginning
file and the middle files from all of the clutter of the earlier jobs.
Can you clean it out anytime you like?

cat file1 file2 file3 ... filen > bigfile

is so clean and easy. So is:

cp file1 + file2 + ... + filen bigfile

Cutting and pasting in the editor is a kludge, and as such is highly prone
to errors. It is the kind of thing I do when I am feeling lazy and don't
want to think. I always get bit in the a$$ when I am feeling lazy and
don'w want to think.

-Chuck

George · Jun 21, 2005

In article <dtagb11ab5gchk30a64hmm8higt577799g@4ax.com>,
thegreatone@example.com says...

I'm looking for a utility that can, in Windows Explorer,
emulate the DOS equivalent of:

copy header.ps+file1.ps+file2.ps+file3.ps+... +footer.ps
total.ps

I can do this presently under a DOS window, but it's a
pain, plus DOS barfs on long filenames or spaces.

(I'm using this to merge numerous simulation outputs
into a single PostScript file, the run thru Acrobat to
produce a PDF.)

I use Concat.

http://www.jddesign.f2s.com/concat-s.htm

Works pretty well. In Windows Explorer, you select the
files you want to concatenate, right-click on the first one,
select Concatenate, and away you go.

Chuck Harris · Jun 21, 2005

George wrote:

I use Concat.

http://www.jddesign.f2s.com/concat-s.htm

Works pretty well. In Windows Explorer, you select the
files you want to concatenate, right-click on the first one,
select Concatenate, and away you go.

How does it handle keeping the files in the correct order?

-Chuck

Ted Edwards · Jun 21, 2005

Jim Thompson wrote:

copy header.ps+file1.ps+file2.ps+file3.ps+... +footer.ps total.ps
...
(I'm using this to merge numerous simulation outputs into a single
PostScript file, the run thru Acrobat to produce a PDF.)

I'd heard of doing this with PS files but couldn't get it to work. Are
there special requirements on the ps files?

Ted

Jim Thompson · Jun 21, 2005

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 22:41:58 GMT, Ted Edwards
<Ted_Espamless@telus.net> wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
copy header.ps+file1.ps+file2.ps+file3.ps+... +footer.ps total.ps
...
(I'm using this to merge numerous simulation outputs into a single
PostScript file, the run thru Acrobat to produce a PDF.)

I'd heard of doing this with PS files but couldn't get it to work. Are
there special requirements on the ps files?

Ted

I lurked on the PostScript group and begged assistance. The trick is
in the line above beginning "copy..."

header.ps and footer.ps set and reset magical things to allow
concatenation of the files listed in between....

header.ps:

%%
%% First things first, we set up the letter tray. Of course
%% if you wanted another tray, you could change this...
%%
[{
%%BeginFeature: *PageSize Letter
statusdict /lettertray get exec
%%EndFeature
} stopped cleartomark

%%
%% Windows drivers stick a 'control-d' at the end of jobs. This causes
%% many interpreters to think its the end of job (hang over from
serial
%% communication days). So, we define an operator called /4 which does
%% nothing.
%%
(\004) cvn {} bind def

%%
%% lettertray does different things on different interpeters. On Jaws
%% it just changesd the page size, on Adobe it seems to erase the page
%% too. Since we've already set it up once, its safe to zap the
%% definition.
%%
statusdict begin /lettertray {} bind def end

%%
%% Now we store the *original* definitions of the operators we are
%% about to change, in case we need them...
%%
/Mysetpagedevice /setpagedevice load def
/Myshowpage /showpage load def

%%
%% Now, we make sure that the job can't change our setup, which might
%% cause graphics state resets and other embarrasments.
%%
/setpagedevice {pop} bind def

%%
%% we redefine showpage so that it does nothing, this means that the
%% next 'page' will overlay the current page.
%%
/showpage {} bind def

footer.ps:

%%
%% Lastly we emit the *original* showpage definition to 'show' the
page
%%
Myshowpage

I'll look back some years thru my notes and see if I can't provide
proper attribution to the original author.

Enjoy.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

Don Taylor · Jun 21, 2005

Chuck Harris <cf-NO-SPAM-harris@erols.com> writes:

Don Taylor wrote:
Chuck Harris <cf-NO-SPAM-harris@erols.com> writes:
Look around, most of the RAM sold today doesn't even have a parity bit!
Bit failures occur right and left, and you don't have a clue unless it happens
to crash your machine. What do you suppose those occasional failed bits do
to the integrity of your data?

When the reliability of the OS is many orders of magnitude worse than
the reliability of the RAM, the RAM contribution really doesn't matter.

Show an OS that has 1 failure per 2000 customers using it full time
24 hours a day for a year and then maybe RAM failures become an issue.

That is like two dozen of your friends all using Windows for fifty
years and there being a 95% chance that not a one of you had ever seen
a single bug, no matter how small, or even hidden by the OS to help you.

Since a crash is about the only way to tell a single bit error has occurred
in memory, I guess ignorance is bliss.

I'd guess there are lots of single bit errors that never get as far as a
crash.

I wonder whether it would be possible to find a board with error checking,
fiddle with the setup to just count the errors but not correct them, and
let Windows run.

Your attempt at characterizing the error rates of RAM are interesting, but
my own personal experience has had me swap out error prone memory
sticks with good result. Something that shouldn't be possible if the RAM
was really as reliable as you seem to think it is.

There are "bad sticks", with the handling some people do I'm not surpised,
but I don't think those are the same as the rare single bit failure.

There are also bad contacts. Someone inside Intel told me that he had
found out that there was a screwup in the standarization process. Somehow
the guys writing the specs for the edges of the dimms and the guys writing
the specs for the sockets got out of sync. The result was that number of
times you can insert and remove a dimm and still expect it to not have
any errors is substantially less than it was supposed to be. I asked him
how many times he thought was safe and he said "half a dozen, maybe."

Chuck Harris · Jun 21, 2005

Don Taylor wrote:

Since a crash is about the only way to tell a single bit error has occurred
in memory, I guess ignorance is bliss.

I'd guess there are lots of single bit errors that never get as far as a
crash.

I wonder whether it would be possible to find a board with error checking,
fiddle with the setup to just count the errors but not correct them, and
let Windows run.

I haven't had a board with ECC for a while, but as you say, the error rate isn't
real high. Back in the days of 256K ram chips, small amounts of radioactive
material that naturally occurred in the ceramic almost shut semiconductor memory
down. There are still errors caused by cosmic rays, and other ionizing radiation
that strikes a memory cell from time to time.

The problem is, that without error detection, you have no way of telling when, or
if, single bit problems are occuring.

Your attempt at characterizing the error rates of RAM are interesting, but
my own personal experience has had me swap out error prone memory
sticks with good result. Something that shouldn't be possible if the RAM
was really as reliable as you seem to think it is.

There are "bad sticks", with the handling some people do I'm not surpised,
but I don't think those are the same as the rare single bit failure.

In the case of my last bad stick, the error tended to happen in a critical part of
memory, so it would crash the kernel in linux... sometimes. Perhaps once
every month. A completely unacceptable rate for linux, or any other unix.
I swapped the old sticks out for new, and the crashes went away. Later, after
doing extensive memory checks on the bad sticks, and finding nothing wrong, I
put them in another machine, and the monthly crash moved to that machine.
The next step was the trash can.

There are also bad contacts. Someone inside Intel told me that he had
found out that there was a screwup in the standarization process. Somehow
the guys writing the specs for the edges of the dimms and the guys writing
the specs for the sockets got out of sync. The result was that number of
times you can insert and remove a dimm and still expect it to not have
any errors is substantially less than it was supposed to be. I asked him
how many times he thought was safe and he said "half a dozen, maybe."

I haven't seen any SIMMS, or other memory sticks that looked damaged from
the sockets, but I am sure that that is a possibility.

-Chuck

Mac · Jun 22, 2005

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 08:05:18 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

I'm looking for a utility that can, in Windows Explorer, emulate the
DOS equivalent of:

copy header.ps+file1.ps+file2.ps+file3.ps+... +footer.ps total.ps

I can do this presently under a DOS window, but it's a pain, plus DOS
barfs on long filenames or spaces.

(I'm using this to merge numerous simulation outputs into a single
PostScript file, the run thru Acrobat to produce a PDF.)

...Jim Thompson

I think it would be pretty easy to write a program which reads a list of
input files, and writes them all, in the order they are listed, into an
output file.

It could be called mycat.

e.g.:

mycat listfile.txt outfile.ps

listfile.txt would look like this:

preamblefile
file1
file2
file3
file4
lastfile

I could do this for you for nothing, if it would solve your problem
adequately.

You could also install cygwin. Cygwin comes with bash, which would let you
use cat, and make composing an error free command line trivial.

--Mac

Mac · Jun 22, 2005

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:04:05 -0400, Chuck Harris wrote:

Tom Del Rosso wrote:

Xerox Parc guys, they abandoned all of the intelligent folks who

understood

the true power of a command line driven shell program.

Ahhh, Parc. They had workstations made from SSI and MSI, and ran GUIs with
Ethernet, and since RAM chips were unreliable they ran automatic diagnostics
at night so in the morning they knew what specific RAM chip to replace
before the user knew his station had a problem. Now we have systems that
halt on blue screens informing us of parity errors, but they (Windows, on
which I saw this happen yesterday) don't even think to say if it was in the
upper or lower half of memory, so you have to guess which module to replace,
then wait for the intermittent event to repeat.

Look around, most of the RAM sold today doesn't even have a parity bit!
Bit failures occur right and left, and you don't have a clue unless it happens
to crash your machine. What do you suppose those occasional failed bits do
to the integrity of your data?

Some computers still use ECC RAM. A few years ago I designed a SBC with
ECC RAM. One of the chipset registers could set the computer to raise a
system error signal, thus blue-screening windows 2000 upon detection of a
single bit error. The BIOS allowed you to set this register. We exercised
these SBC's heavily: over temperature, over Voltage, and over clock rate.
Once we got the thing dialed in, we NEVER saw memory errors.

Perhaps your comments apply to crappy computers, but well-designed ones
should not exhibit these kinds of problems.

Why (and the above is just an aside to this question ) do people say
that Linux isn't true Unix? What's it missing?

It isn't missing anything. It is fully Posix compatible. But it isn't
unix. To be unix it needs to have a lineage that traces back to the old
tapes from Western Electric. The BSD's, Xenix, SCO, ... have that
lineage, but linux, being written from scratch doesn't.

-Chuck

By the way, Windows NT is posix compliant. Posix != unix.

--Mac

Chuck Harris · Jun 22, 2005

Mac wrote:

Some computers still use ECC RAM. A few years ago I designed a SBC with
ECC RAM. One of the chipset registers could set the computer to raise a
system error signal, thus blue-screening windows 2000 upon detection of a
single bit error. The BIOS allowed you to set this register. We exercised
these SBC's heavily: over temperature, over Voltage, and over clock rate.
Once we got the thing dialed in, we NEVER saw memory errors.

Perhaps your comments apply to crappy computers, but well-designed ones
should not exhibit these kinds of problems.

Of course! But comsumer grade computers, as made by Dell, HP, and others
are primarily cost driven; as a result, non parity, non ECC memory gets
designed into the systems. You and I have no way of knowing for sure how
many single bit errors simply happen undetected in these systems. A system
that uses non error detecting memory is not well very designed.

Most of the memory I have used in recent years is amazingly reliable, I
think (without error detection hardware, I cannot know). But I have come
across some that after of days of testing, using some very sophisticated
memory test programs, passes all of the testing with flying colors!
But when used to run linux, fails in a sporadic mannor. Other identical
memory sticks don't fail. Obviously something was happening that the memory
test program was ill equiped to find. But then, I have never met a memory
test program that could successfully find anything but the most drastic of
memory problems.
....

By the way, Windows NT is posix compliant. Posix != unix.

I am aware of that. Posix is simply an IEEE committee's attempt to set a standard
set of interfaces, libraries, and behaviors. The Posix committee used unix
as a model for most of what they did. One of the first goals set within the
linux/gnu community was to become fully posix compliant.

-Chuck

Rich Grise · Jun 22, 2005

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:56:34 +0000, Ted Edwards wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
I'm looking for a utility that can, in Windows Explorer, emulate the
DOS equivalent of:

copy header.ps+file1.ps+file2.ps+file3.ps+... +footer.ps total.ps

If you dumped 'doze and ran OS/2 or eCS, you could type that line into
an OS/2 command line and hit enter right from the desktop.

Actually, you can do this in doze - "Start - Run Program" or whatever
it's called - but I think Jim wants to avoid the typing. I'd check out
that "concat" utility somebody mentioned.

Cheers!
Rich

Ted Edwards · Jun 22, 2005

Jim Thompson wrote:

copy header.ps+file1.ps+file2.ps+file3.ps+... +footer.ps total.ps
...
(I'm using this to merge numerous simulation outputs into a single
PostScript file, the run thru Acrobat to produce a PDF.)

I'd heard of doing this with PS files but couldn't get it to work. Are
there special requirements on the ps files?

I lurked on the PostScript group and begged assistance. The trick is
in the line above beginning "copy..."

header.ps and footer.ps set and reset magical things to allow
concatenation of the files listed in between....

Thanks, Jim. Saved for later use.

Ted

George · Jun 22, 2005

In article <KomdnQtn4KuaDCXfRVn-sQ@rcn.net>,
cf-NO-SPAM-harris@erols.com says...

George wrote:

I use Concat.

http://www.jddesign.f2s.com/concat-s.htm

Works pretty well. In Windows Explorer, you select the
files you want to concatenate, right-click on the first
one, select Concatenate, and away you go.

How does it handle keeping the files in the correct
order?

It uses the order the files appear in under W.E. So, if you
have the folder set to display files alphabetically by
filename, then that's what Concat will use. However, Concat
also shows you a list of the filenames in the selected
order, and you can manually move them around (I think this
manual re-order may require registration, but there are
serials around I think).

Anyway, with this available, I see no reason to use Copy, or
to reinvent the wheel. It works exactly the way you want it
to, it's fast, and it's in the context menu.

Jim Thompson · Jun 22, 2005

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 15:23:07 -0500, George <gh424NO824SPAM@cox.net>
wrote:

In article <KomdnQtn4KuaDCXfRVn-sQ@rcn.net>,
cf-NO-SPAM-harris@erols.com says...

George wrote:

I use Concat.

http://www.jddesign.f2s.com/concat-s.htm

Works pretty well. In Windows Explorer, you select the
files you want to concatenate, right-click on the first
one, select Concatenate, and away you go.

How does it handle keeping the files in the correct
order?

It uses the order the files appear in under W.E. So, if you
have the folder set to display files alphabetically by
filename, then that's what Concat will use. However, Concat
also shows you a list of the filenames in the selected
order, and you can manually move them around (I think this
manual re-order may require registration, but there are
serials around I think).

Anyway, with this available, I see no reason to use Copy, or
to reinvent the wheel. It works exactly the way you want it
to, it's fast, and it's in the context menu.

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

Martin Riddle · Jun 24, 2005

"Jim Thompson" <thegreatone@example.com> wrote in message news:dtagb11ab5gchk30a64hmm8higt577799g@4ax.com...

I'm looking for a utility that can, in Windows Explorer, emulate the
DOS equivalent of:

copy header.ps+file1.ps+file2.ps+file3.ps+... +footer.ps total.ps

I can do this presently under a DOS window, but it's a pain, plus DOS
barfs on long filenames or spaces.

(I'm using this to merge numerous simulation outputs into a single
PostScript file, the run thru Acrobat to produce a PDF.)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

late reply here.. But

You can create a batch file and add it to the 'Send to' folder. In explorer high light the files to be catted. Each highlighted file
name then will be sent as an argument to the batch file.

So then the batch file might look like this.....

@echo off
SET /P cat_filename="Please enter a (path) & filename for the concatanated file. :"
echo %1 %2 %3 %4
:BEGIN
if '%1'=="" goto END
copy %1 /A temp.txt /A
shift
:MYLOOP
echo %1
copy /A temp.txt /A + %1 /A %cat_filename% /A
shift
copy %cat_filename% /A temp.txt /A
if '%1'=='' goto END
goto MYLOOP
echo done...
:END
del temp.txt
pause

One problem is that it does not sort the input files ;(

Martin

Jim Thompson · Jun 24, 2005

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 02:41:43 GMT, "Martin Riddle"
<martinriddle@hotmail.com> wrote:

"Jim Thompson" <thegreatone@example.com> wrote in message news:dtagb11ab5gchk30a64hmm8higt577799g@4ax.com...
I'm looking for a utility that can, in Windows Explorer, emulate the
DOS equivalent of:

copy header.ps+file1.ps+file2.ps+file3.ps+... +footer.ps total.ps

I can do this presently under a DOS window, but it's a pain, plus DOS
barfs on long filenames or spaces.

(I'm using this to merge numerous simulation outputs into a single
PostScript file, the run thru Acrobat to produce a PDF.)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

late reply here.. But

You can create a batch file and add it to the 'Send to' folder. In explorer high light the files to be catted. Each highlighted file
name then will be sent as an argument to the batch file.

So then the batch file might look like this.....

@echo off
SET /P cat_filename="Please enter a (path) & filename for the concatanated file. :"
echo %1 %2 %3 %4
:BEGIN
if '%1'=="" goto END
copy %1 /A temp.txt /A
shift
:MYLOOP
echo %1
copy /A temp.txt /A + %1 /A %cat_filename% /A
shift
copy %cat_filename% /A temp.txt /A
if '%1'=='' goto END
goto MYLOOP
echo done...
:END
del temp.txt
pause

One problem is that it does not sort the input files ;(

Martin

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

Martin Riddle · Jun 24, 2005

"Jim Thompson" <thegreatone@example.com> wrote in message news:ccumb11bjpfaq0u965j652gdbr1ffgpjq6@4ax.com...

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 02:41:43 GMT, "Martin Riddle"
martinriddle@hotmail.com> wrote:

"Jim Thompson" <thegreatone@example.com> wrote in message news:dtagb11ab5gchk30a64hmm8higt577799g@4ax.com...
I'm looking for a utility that can, in Windows Explorer, emulate the
DOS equivalent of:

copy header.ps+file1.ps+file2.ps+file3.ps+... +footer.ps total.ps

I can do this presently under a DOS window, but it's a pain, plus DOS
barfs on long filenames or spaces.

(I'm using this to merge numerous simulation outputs into a single
PostScript file, the run thru Acrobat to produce a PDF.)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

late reply here.. But

You can create a batch file and add it to the 'Send to' folder. In explorer high light the files to be catted. Each highlighted
file
name then will be sent as an argument to the batch file.

So then the batch file might look like this.....

@echo off
SET /P cat_filename="Please enter a (path) & filename for the concatanated file. :"
echo %1 %2 %3 %4
:BEGIN
if '%1'=="" goto END
copy %1 /A temp.txt /A
shift
:MYLOOP
echo %1
copy /A temp.txt /A + %1 /A %cat_filename% /A
shift
copy %cat_filename% /A temp.txt /A
if '%1'=='' goto END
goto MYLOOP
echo done...
:END
del temp.txt
pause

One problem is that it does not sort the input files ;(

Martin

ConCat from JDDesigns does it perfectly, and allows setting order of
concatenation.

...Jim Thompson
I checked my bat file again and it can sort, the file names are passed in the order as shown in explorer. Right clicking on the

first file will order it from the top. much like ConCat. But thats about the limit.

Cheers

OT: Looking for a Utility

Spehro Pefhany

Guest

Arie de Muynck

Guest

Jim Thompson

Guest

Chuck Harris

Guest

George

Guest

Chuck Harris

Guest

Ted Edwards

Guest

Jim Thompson

Guest

Don Taylor

Guest

Chuck Harris

Guest

Mac

Guest

Mac

Guest

Chuck Harris

Guest

Rich Grise

Guest

Ted Edwards

Guest

George

Guest

Jim Thompson

Guest

Martin Riddle

Guest

Jim Thompson

Guest

Martin Riddle

Guest

Log in

Welcome to EDABoard.com

Sponsor