ShowFile Document ----------------- DISCLAIMER ---------- While ShowFile has proven stable and problem free, the standard disclaimer applies; no warranty is expressed or implied, and the author shall not be liable for any damage or claims that arise from usage of this program. You are entirely responsible on your own risk for all things sustained by the legal use or misuse. DISTRIBUTION ------------ ShowFile is freely distributable. However, the binary and documentation file must be distributed together in their unaltered form. What Is ShowFile? ----------------- ShowFile is a CLI utility which can be used in the same way as Dir or List. Basically it gives you a list of the current directory or a specified path and tries to identify each file it comes across. Currently it reconizes about 79 different filetypes. These range from compressed files formats such as PowerPacker, Imploder etc.. to 3D data files such as LightWave, Imagine etc... If you find a filetype that ShowFile doesn't currently reconize and would like it to then please send in this filetype along with as much information on it that you have. If it is possible to send in the program that created it do so, otherwise send as many examples of the as you can. (It is no good sending just one example - as I need lots to find similarities in them) How it Works ------------ The program scans through a directory, locking on each file in turn. After that, the first 100 bytes are read from this file. (Early versions read the first 1024 bytes, YUCK!!) After the read, it uses its database of file formats to try can find a match. Each entry in the database is compared with the header until either a match is found or data is exhaused in the database. If no match is found, then ShowFile can only tell you if the file in question is a data file or an executable file (see all is not lost!) History ------- 15th March 1993 Came up with the idea. Very first version completed which could only show one file at a time, no directory option. It reconized only Power Packer files, I was bloody impressed (I would wouln't I?) 18th March 1993 Added (and removed) bits and pieces to speed up the code. 8th April 1993 Added more file formats. Now 13 reconized. Directory option at last! No more checking one file at a time. 3rd November 1993 Added more file formats. Now 21 reconized. Removed known bug that caused the machine to crash if the path of a given file or directory exceeded 40 byte. (All I did was make the buffer a bit bigger) 19th January 1994 Added more file formats. Now 32 reconized. Now also displays size of file in bytes. 28th January 1994 Added more file formats. Now 37 reconized. Changed code around a bit to optimize the process of findind data in the database. 1st Feburary 1994 Added Yet more file formats. Now 41 reconized. 7th Febuary 1994 Added more file formats. Now 43 reconized. 11th Febuary 1994 Added more file formats. Now 49 reconized. 14th Febuary 1994 Added 4 more file formats. Imploder data file, RNC data file,Turbo Spike V1.03, XPK Compressed file Now 56 reconized. 16th Febuary 1994 Timer added, now you can tell how long it took to scan a directory, therefore know when its the time of the year to optimize the disk. 17th Febuary 1994 Could only get hold of one file type today! ATN data file added Now 57 reconized. 2nd March 1994 Seems like one of those days again. Just added Disk Imploder File. Now 58 reconized. 28th September 1994 File types are getting thin these days almost 6 months have passed and just one file type. Added Crm2 data file. Now 59 reconized. 5th November 1994 Bonfire? No! Stone Cracker Library (executable) added. Thanks to AUI for putting that on their Coverdisk. Now 60 reconized. 12th December 1994 3 days after the World of Amiga Show. Kinda cool show eh? (NO! - a Pentium user) What! I hate Pentiums they are toooooooo sloooow. A PowerPC 620 clocked at 133MHZ will eat a 100MHZ Pentium for breakfast with its 6 execution units (NOT 2 like the Pentiums). And the Pentium has a well dodgy floating point unit which can't do floating point maths all that well (because it does not work). Well that was a kinda unfair comparsion, as the Pentium is 32 bit micro processor with a 64 bit data Bus, 32 bit address bus, and is also CISC and backward compatable with its ancesor the mighty 4040 (ha ha). Whereas the PowerPC 620 is a 64 bit RISC based micro ( or should that be MEGA ) processor. It has a 128 bit data bus (I must say this bus must get busy), 40 bit address bus. The PowerPC 620 has an impressive internal cache of 64Kb but the Pentium has 16Kb in total (8K data, 8K instruction) And another thing the Pentium erm... Oh yes I don't quite know what happened there Old one here! Sculpt 3D/4D data file. Now 61 reconized. 15th December 1994 3D Packages Glore! Added 7 more file formats. Imagine, LightWave Draw 4D Pro, Video Scape, Pixel Pro, Callari, Draw 4D. Now 68 reconized. 26th December 1994 Now able to reconize fonts, and also how many of them in the family. Support upto 8 yet, because each one takes space in the database, and fonts with more than 8 sizes in a family are rare. Route Bit file. Sculpt 3D/4D take file. Also added Imagine's own graphics format known as RGBN-24 (Me thinks) Now 79 reconized. 6th January 1995 Decided finally after all this time to realase it. Version 1.00 is born! Please send in bug reports, any suggestions, PowerPC 620'S, $$$ Money £££, to 4 LLOYD STREET, SMALL HEATH, BIRMINGHAM, B10 OLH.