Re: EOF zapper

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

To users of my KILL1A.EXE program, sent a few days ago:
  Please read this whole message. HB

At 03:46 AM 9/22/97 +0000, Carl DiStefano wrote:
>
>I briefly tried Annie's version of Harry's Ascii-26 (1Ah) zapper. A
>couple of differences between it and setting DEFAULT 1A=1 in
>Xy4|XyWin are worth noting.

My pgm (kill1a.exe) is for those using xy3 who don't have this option.

>The zapper utility will delete 1A's occurring within 3-byte XyWrite
>characters (for example, the "boldface" [282], which consists of
>Ascii 254+26+0), while Xy4|XyWin preserves those 3-byte characters.
>These potentially mischievous 3-byters virtually never appear in
>document files, but occur often enough in some XPL PMs. Thus, use
>care when running the zapper on XPL files.

Thanks for noting that, Carl. (Though I can't imagine why one would run this
on XPL files, or on any files to be kept in native xy format.) I have
allowed for this problem with KILL1A-2 (see below).

>Another difference is that Xy4 will substitute an Ascii-49 (the
>character "1") for the EOF marker and all subsequent instances of
>1A. The zapper utility simply deletes them.

Noting Carl's valid objection, I have created version 2: KILL1A-2 which is
available in both .exe and .zip versions.

KILL1A-2 allows you to replace, should you so desire, the 1A's with any
string up to 80 bytes long. It also fixes certain minor bugs in the first
version (especially what happens if you don't delete an earlier output file
when you run the program again and give the output file the same name as the
earlier one.) Note, however, that neither of my programs does ANYTHING to
your original file, so there is no real danger: you'll always have your
untouched original.

Since Peter Evans didn't want to have program files, however short, sent as
attachments, I'll have to ask those who want the new version to send me
private email at: hb@xxxxxxxx (but I'm sending the .zip file to Annie and
Rene straightaway).

Regards,


Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx