IRS (Information Retrieval System) v1.00 User Manual April 3, 1991 Requires KickStart 2.0 to run Preface ======= This program is freeware, this means that you can copy it freely as long as you don't ask any more money for it than a nominal fee for copying. If you want to distribute this program you should keep this document with it. This program cannot be used for commercial purposes without written permission from the author. If you have suggestions or remarks about this program, or if you find any bugs, please let me know. Write to the following address: Peter Stuer Kauwlei 21 B-2550 Kontich Belgium - Europe Contents ======== 1. Introduction 2. Usage 3. Control 1. Introduction =============== Information Retrieval System (from now on IRS) was written out of frustration. If a lame graphical user interface like Windows v3.0 is accompanied by a rolodex, then why is it so difficult to find a decent rolodex program for our beloved Amiga ? All I want to do is keep some phone numbers, addresses and some additional information handy for when I need it. IRS can easily keep track of your public domain disks: the contents file of the Fred Fish AmigaLibDisks can form the structure for your data file: just add some keywords and the record terminators and you have an instant lookup facility. I have included an example rolodex with some entries. IRS is not a replacement for a full featured rolodex program. It doesn't offer a lot of bells and whistles but it works fast and reliable and has a very flexible file format. The data is kept in an ASCII text file and can be edited by any ASCII editor. This text file can be crunched and encrypted with PowerPacker. PowerPacker is an executable and datacruncher by Nico François and is available as shareware (up to version 2.3b) or as a commercial program (version 3.0b). 2. Usage ======== IRS can only be used from the CLI. If you run IRS without arguments you will get a some information about IRS. 1> IRS IRS (Information Retrieval System) v0.99a by Peter Stuer April 2, 1991 - TEST VERSION - FREEWARE Usage: IRS [FROM ] [...] The FROM option allows you to use a different ASCII text file than the default "S:Rolodex" as you data file. Read further to find out about the file structure. The arguments are the keywords (case INsensitive) you want to look for in the phonebook. IRS supports the new pattern matching routines in AmigaDOS 2.0. The patterns are fairly extensive, and approximate some of the ability of Unix/grep "regular expression" patterns. Here are the available tokens: ? Matches a single character. # Matches the following expression 0 or more times. (ab|cd) Matches any one of the items seperated by '|'. ~ Negates the following expression. [abc] Character class: matches any of the characters in the class. a-z Character range (only within character classes). % Matches 0 characters always (useful in "(foo|bar|%)"). * Synonym for "#?", not available by default in 2.0. Available as an option that can be turned on. "Expression" in the above table means either a single character (ex: "#?"), or an alternation (ex: "#(ab|cd|ef)"), or a character class (ex: "#[a-zA-Z]"). The program will then load the phonebook file into memory and will start to look for any entries that match your keywords. The keywords are matched one by one. If ANY of your supplied keywords matches ANY of the keywords of an entry, that entry will be shown. If the file was crunched using PowerPacker 2.0 or higher IRS will first decrunch it for you. If the file was encrypted you will be prompted for the password. Ex. 1> IRS stuer from S:phonebook displays all the records from the file S:phonebook that have STUER as one of the keys. 1> IRS hires interlace 16 from DH0:GFX/Catalog displays all the records that have information about 16 colour hires interlace pictures from the file DH0:GFX/Catalog. HINT: The Contents files that can be found on the AmigaLibDisks of Fred Fish make execellent candidates to be adapted as an easy reference for the library. 3. File structure ================= IRS use a very simple yet flexible file structure: # comment 1 # ... # KEYWORD1 [, KEYWORD2...] First entry line Second entry line ... nth entry line # record terminater and introducer of the next record (if any) ... # last record terminater As you can see in the structure diagram above IRS allows any number of comment lines at the beginning of the file. A comment line has a '#' character in the first position. Any character following the '#' character is ignored. After these comment lines (if there are any) the keys for the first record follow. The keywords have to be in upper case ! If you have more than one keyword separate them by spaces f.i. FRED FISH, AMIGALIBDISK There are two keys on the line above "Fred Fish" and "AMIGALIBDISK". Make sure if you want IRS to recognize "Fred Fish" you use quotes because AmigaDOS will think you supplied two keys instead of one: 1> IRS Fred Fish will find all entries that EITHER have FRED or FISH as keywords. While: 1> IRS "fred fish" will show all entries with FRED FISH as one of the keywords. Next come the lines that make up one record. IRS will display all lines following the line with the keys until it encounters a comment (that is , a line that has the '#' as the first character). Here follows an example where IRS is used as a phonebook: # # My Little Black Book # FISH, FRED FISH, PUBLIC DOMAIN, AMIGA Fred Fish 1835 East Belmont Drive Tempe, Arizona 85284 USA # STUER Peter Stuer Kauwlei 21 B-2550 Kontich Belgium - Europe # ... I hope you find this program useful ! 4. To do ======== - Option to list all the different keys in a data file (in case you forgot what you entered. - Possibility to define synonyms for certain keywords like: GFX=GRAPHICS MUSIC=SOUND - Any suggestions are always welcome. PROGRAM HISTORY: **************************************************************** VERSION 1.00 First release. **************************************************************** IRS 1.00 written by Peter Stuer _ _ // Thanks to \X/ Amiga for being the best computer ever !