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Options for PentaTextTools allow them to operate in ways other than standard or default ways so that processing features or ways of accepting input or providing output can be customised. This altered program behaviour can be made, by options, to correspond more closely to what a user expects. For speed and ease of use for intermediate to advanced users these programs are purposely designed to use command line options. Command line options have been a standard way of changing program activities for programs that employ a Command Line Interface or CLI like PentaTextTools. Option Lists: Options can be listed by giving a Text Tool in PentaTextTools a line like NLX -a to show All options menus or NLX -tS to show options by the Sequence (the order that options are covered in this document's Options reference sections) or NLX -tI that will show Options mostly by Input or Output purpose. An option list shows the name of the program first, followed by "OPTIONS". Then a line shows the type of options being displayed: By Menu or By Sequence or By Input/Output KEY line A line at the start of an options list looks like OPTION [+]Description.[++] (Option Value) It gives a KEY to what the option lines mean. Each option line begins with a string like -a that shows the special option character "-" followed by a one or two letter option like "a" or "jc". If the KEY string is followed by <d> then the option string needs to have other data after the string or a "-" character to turn off the option if already on. So an option KEY followed by "<d>" like -X<d> means that when using option "X" that it needs to have data after it like -X"*.exe" or to be turned off by using a "-" after "-X" -X- The next item on the KEY header line OPTION [+]Description.[++] (Option Value) ^^^ is "[+]" A "+" symbol on an option line shows if an option has already been turned on when the option list is viewed. The option list can be viewed at any part of the command line. It will show "+" if default options are turned on for a Text Tool given by setting the ENVIRONMENT variable of <PROGRAM>_OPTIONS too. The "+" is shown hi-lighted if viewed on the screen, to give extra emphasis to the option being set. If an option is not turned-on the "+" does not show up. After this comes "Description." An option list description is a phrase that explains what the option does in just a few words. It gives a brief explanation of what the option does followed by a period "." So an option line like -X<d> eXclude files list. has a description of "eXclude files list." When viewed on the screen the "X" in the description is usually high lighted to show what the option symbol signifies in the description. The next item on the KEY header line of OPTION [+]Description.[++] (Option Value) ^^^^ is "[++]" If the option uses attached data "<d>" a "++" string indicates this option will accept a comma or semi-colon separated list of <d> values. eg -X*.exe;*.com;*.dll will make the attached data "<d>" for option "-X" become the string "*.exe;*.com;*.dll" that can be used for eXcluding *.exe;*.com;*.dll files as data. (When using commas or semicolons for option or other command line data, You may need to enclose them in double quotes " because some programs or batch file operations will remove them if unquoted.) Lastly comes an (Option Value) that shows any option attached data value, either by default or by the option being turned on. It is shown in between parentheses. Some options have a definite significant minimum or maximum number that is used as a default value. The OptionValue is only shown if an option uses attached data "<d>". Option Menus: Menus exist for showing options. Menus are like those for File, View, Help To see options by menus give a command line like NLX -a to the DOS shell and a categorised list of options by menus will be given on the screen or to standard output. Menu Option Descriptions File Options File Options are mostly for specifying different types of file access such as recursive descent into subdirectories or access to hidden files. These options mostly deal with the INPUT side of a Text Tool. Other file options include those for data logging of standard output or error/warning messages, network access waiting, interactive selection of files to process, automatic selection or rejection of files of different types such as text and non-text files, and filters for preparing data for use by a Text Tool. View Options View Options specify different formats that aid the appearance or content of data output. Some of these options affect a Text Tool in different areas. Example: Option "-jT<d>" allows the user to specify what character bytes are text characters, to be regarded as text. This can be used to expand or contract the bytes in a text range so that International Byte Characters can be used in languages other than English. Or it can be used to reduce the display to the screen so that mostly sequences of TEXT characters are shown. Or it can help specify and select the types of files that are accessed by a Text Tool so that only text files are chosen to be processed if they only contain characters given by option -jT<d>. (Option -jT<d> is covered in the section on Common Options.) Help Options Help Options show the options available for listing options in various ways such as by Menu or Input/Processing/Output or Sequence (the way options are listed in this document) Options Syntax: Options start with a MINUS character '-' followed by one or more unique option identifier strings. Option identifier strings are single letters, like 'h' of the option string "-h", or 'tk' of the string "-tk". These options signify something special a program is supposed to do, or not do. Options can be continuous in a group, like -abc for options -a and -b and -c. Options with attached option data <d>, like -zname or -z name must be at the END of a continuous options group like -abczname or -abcz name used in place of the longer option strings of -a -b -c -zname or -a -b -c -z name Note: The symbol "<d>" in this document means that there is attached data represented by "d". The "<" and ">" should NOT be included in the attached data. (They have special significance to the DOS shell.) The same applies to similar symbols like "<file>". Cancel an Option: To CANCEL an option, put a '-' after it (e.g. "-i-" ). To CANCEL options with attached option data <d>, the same applies. Starting an Option with "-" To have attached option data <d> be a single MINUS sign then give an option like -O<d> as: -O - where option -O is separated by SPACE from the minus sign or -O"-" where the minus sign is enclosed by double quotes. If an option has attached data like -O-xyz or -O"-xyz" then the attached option data is all of "-xyz" and the option is NOT turned off. For option data <d>, only the last use of the option in a command line sequence with its data <d> is recognised, other possible previous option <d> items are ignored. Some options with data <d> can accept lists for <d>. In this case, use standard separators like commas "," or semi-colons ";" for option data list items. Also, a MINUS character '-' followed by white space and another MINUS character '-', and other possible attached text specifies the second minus character as a file or data spec too. So the sequence - -jk on the command line will tell the program to use the file "-jk" as a data source. Options and Data: On the command line, options starting with the '-' character and data names for files can be mixed and continuous up to about 127 characters. Options and data are interpreted in sequence, that is <program> -i <data> will interpret the option "-i" before doing "<data>", but a command like <program> <data> -i will NOT use option "-i" for "<data>" because option "-i" did not precede "<data>". Option ENVIRONMENT variables ENVIRONMENT variables for PentaTextTools are operating system variables that You can make for configuring the DEFAULT operation of a PentaTextTools program. They have the base name of the program concatenated with the string "_OPTIONS" and are specific to these programs. eg NLX_OPTIONS These variables are parsed for options and data at the start of a program, and can be used to set the default behaviour of the programs to user preferences from batch files like AUTOEXEC.BAT. An ENVIRONMENT variable can be set for each program to customise its behaviour. Memory ENVIRONMENT variables can be used to configure PentaTextTools rather than files. This is one the FASTEST ways to configure program default behaviour each time the tools are run. An example : set NLX_OPTIONS=-h will make NLX operate on HIDDEN files too. Also the ENVIRONMENT variable tracks the program name. For example : If NLX.EXE is renamed to be shorter, like X.EXE, then the ENVIRONMENT variable is X_OPTIONS rather than NLX_OPTIONS. If low on ENVIRONMENT space, let the CONFIG.SYS file have a line like shell=c:\command.com c:\ /e:4096 /p to have more space. In this case, in MS-DOS_3.3+, the environment is expanded to 4096 bytes, more than enough for most PC systems. See a PC operating system User Reference guide for more information on the SHELL and the environment variables. Another way to configure default behaviour is by using the "-jF<d>" option or option files. These allows a Command Line File (CLF) to have its arguments processed like they would appear on the command line. So setting default options in the ENVIRONMENT with a command line like set NLX_OPTIONS=-jFNLX.cfg will make sure the file NLX.cfg is parsed for options and other data before the program NLX continues to run any command line parameters. ENVIRONMENT variables can not include the '=' character and some others like '|', '<' and '>'. So default configuration by option "-jF<d>" or option files is needed if 1) default options must include special characters or 2) an ENVIRONMENT variable becomes too long for the allowable command line length. Also, ENVIRONMENT variables like <PROGRAM>_OPTIONS can extend the potential command line more characters and these become the FIRST Options and Data acted upon when the program starts up. So if additional command line space is needed, a command like: set <PROGRAM>_OPTIONS=<SomeOptions and/or SomeData> in a DOS BATCH file command line will help a TextTool <PROGRAM> to have slightly larger space for options and data specs. eg set NLX_OPTIONS=-h Option Start and Quotes Command Line arguments that start with Quotes followed by the character - are interpreted as a data file. So if a file called -i exists, then it can be specified on the command line as "-i" enclosed in double quotes. e.g. NLX "-minus" will have Tool NLX operate on a file named "-minus". Quoted portions further in an option string like -"i" simply have the double quotes removed to become the option -i. Common Options ENVIRONMENT variable To have ALL tools in PentaTextTools use the SAME default options such as any COMMON OPTIONS such as -f show File name at front of each line. -h select Hidden files too. -o Omit single file name at start of output. -r Recursive search for file(s), dir\files(s) or dir\. -C<d> pre-filter input data by Command <d> with sub [F]. -X<d> eXclude files list. -jn wait for Network access. -jp do data Prompt. -jF<d> take options and specs from File name <d>. -ta<d> save All output to file <d>. -tc<d> Column to wrap data display. -td show screen space or tab as Dot or diamond. -tk press Key to continue. -to<d> save Output to file <d>. -tw<d> save Warnings and error messages to file <d>. -tF<d> default directories for option -jF<d> command File(s). -tA append All output if option -ta<d>. -tO append Output if option -to<d>. -tW append Warnings and error messages if option -tw<d>. Create a Batch File ENVIRONMENT variable such as TT_OPTIONS that can be created in a file like AUTOEXEC.BAT with a line like set TT_OPTIONS=-h -X"*.exe;*.com" -mn -tFc:\tt -tc72 -td to create the environment variable. Then ADD it into a program's specific ENVIRONMENT variable with another line such as: set NLX_OPTIONS=%TT_OPTIONS% -jFNLX.cfg Other info: If the first option to a program is the string "/i" then the PROGRAM_OPTIONS ENVIRONMENT variable will be Ignored. If a command line parameter of the form @<filename> is given, the file <filename> becomes a source of command line options and/or data specifications at that point, similar to option -jF<d>. This allows the command stream for a Text Tool to be much longer than the 128 byte limit of the tool. See Common Options. The ENVIRONMENT variables in Nature are quite important too. Be conservative and see the planet survive! Nature dies...We die...Nature Lives...We Live! See also INSTALL.
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