Wildcard error message

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

I was searching the archives and found this thread a couple of years
back, and now have something further to report. There really does seem to
be a memory issue involved. I have a 64 K file (converted from Word,
where it was 118 K!) and was trying to clean up the Xy3-style formmatting
codes (MDIT, MDNM). Running
CI /≪MDIT≫≪W≫≪MDNM≫/≪MD+IT≫≪W≫≪MD-IT≫/
(where ≪W≫ is the wildcard string) provoked the "Wildcard characters
must be in the same order" error message. So I decided to try writing a
short XPL program to search for individual instances of ≪MDNM≫, mark
the place, search backwards, etc. Created a small sample file (2K) with
MDIT and MDSU in it repeatedly, to test on. Just to check, I tried
issuing the same command. Ran without a whimper. (And this is on the 24Mb
laptop; the other on the 128Mb, + 4MB VGA desktop.) Apparently, the
misleading error message only pops up if the file is over a certain
length. Will now try cutting the big file into chunks and running the
command on them to see what the breakpoint is. And by the by, I work with
no printer driver loaded, since I almost never print from XyDOS. Will
also try shelling to DOS and runing MEM to see just how much RAM is being
gobbled up.
Patricia