Re: List Archives : searching

[Daniel Say say@xxxxxxxx]

" " >The archives of this list for 1994-98, which were deleted from the
" " >U.Pa. server earlier this year, can now be downloaded
"
" It goes without saying for those who *don't* need to consult these early
" discussions that XyWrite can make searching these archives incredibly easy.
" (Yes, you can SEARCH the archives on line, but why not have the entire thing
" just milliseconds away, right under your fingers, in XyWrite?) For those who
" *ought* to look through the archives for earlier discussions, it may be
" useful for the gurus to describe the best way to find the info therein.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
	Or, might I suggest an FGREP written so that it runs
	on DOS or OS/2. It's at the OS/2 software archive called Hobbes.
  Linkname: fgrep11.zip
    URL: ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/util/file/fgrep11.zip

	The lines above and below feature with the results thrown
	into a disposable file are quite useful for me searching
	for files in context.
	Source code is included and the self-help shows

GNU fgrep, version 1.1

Usage: D:\TEMP4\FGREP.EXE [-[[AB]]] [-[CVchilnsvwx]] [-[ef]]  []

 -A  print  lines of context after every matching line
 -B  print  lines of context before every matching line
 -C    print 2 lines of context on each side of every match
 -  print  lines of context on each side
 -V    print the version number on stderr
 -b    print every match preceded by its byte offset
 -c    print a total count of matching lines only
 -e  search for ; useful if  begins with -
 -f  take  from the given 
 -h    don't display filenames on matches
 -i    ignore case difference when comparing strings
 -l    list files containing matches only
 -n    print each match preceded by its line number
 -s    run silently producing no output except error messages
 -v    print only lines that contain no matches for the 
 -w    print only lines where the match is a complete word
 -x    print only lines where the match is a whole line
-------------- Daniel Say say@xxxxxxxx ------------------------

	There are many others.

	Certainly from my involvement history of this list,
	titles of the messages often meant little related to
	the content, some weeks there would be a plethora of
	mailbox full messages from a subscriber's mailbot.

	Best of luck.

	Hmm. Crude HTML tags might suffice to index the whole
	thing with broad classes of words....
"
" My own quick-and-dirty method (I use Xy 3.55 in full-screen mode with Win95)
" is to download all the archive files and then copy/move the files into a
" single directory (call it c:\xylist). Then dedicate a key (alt-shift-H--for
" help, in my case) to the simple routine (in TABLE=ALT+SHIFT):
"
" 35=bc,s,e, ,c,:,\,x,y,l,i,s,t,\,*,.,*,/,/,cl
"
" (35 is the keyboard number for 'h'.)
"
" This puts your cursor in position to type a string for some topic the list
" might have covered at some point since 1994.  Drawbacks: you have to work
" from an empty screen; you have the XyWrite native search across files
" problems of having to OPEN the file if you find something you want (or
" CONTINUE, or STOP). There are far better search utilities now available
" through this list, and, I imagine, good ways to index the material for even
" more efficient retrieval (e.g., Orbis, I'd guess)--for which, over to the
" next correspondent....
"
" Peter Brown
" pbrown@xxxxxxxx
"
"