;Released as public domain 28-Jan-1996 by the author Dave Dustin




                              TrimLog V1.21
                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                   (c) David Dustin / ECLIPSE Software


                           5th September, 1994




Preface
~~~~~~~
  The  programs  and  files in this distribution are freely distributable,
  but are also Copyright (c) David Dustin.  They may be freely distributed
  as  long  as  no  more  than  a minimum fee is charged to cover time and
  copying  costs.  Permission is given for this distribution archive to be
  placed  into  Public-Domain collections such as the Amiga Library run by
  Fred Fish.

  They may also be made freely available to any  REGISTERED Excelsior! BBS
  sysops, and may be placed on any Support BBS's for the Excelsior! BBS.


  If  you  do decide to make use of TrimLog, you are suggested to send any
  form  of  donation  or  gift  as  payment.  This will get you the latest
  version of TrimLog, and also any other programs I have released.


  If  you  do have any suggestions, bug notes or ideas about this program,
  or if you would like to donate something, please let me know.


    Write to me at the following address:

                               David Dustin
                             30 Richmond Ave
                             Palmerston North
                               NEW ZEALAND


    Or I can be contacted via:
                      dave@eclipsnz.manawatu.gen.nz



Contents
~~~~~~~~
    1.     An introduction
    2.     Requirments
    3.     Usage
    4.     History
    5.     Future
    6.     Credits / Copyrights



1.  An Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  TrimLog was written after a request by Renze.  He was working on a Who's
Called program to go with our Excelsior!  BBS's, and normal programs that
cut back a file to a required number of lines don't work, seeing as
Excelsor!  logs are very strange :)

  Also, TrimLog is now a normal TrimFile program as well, thus allowing
you to reduce a file to a certain number lines very quickly.



2.  Requirments
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  TrimLog can only be used on machine with at least V37 of the DOS library
(seeing as Excelsior only works with V37+ I decided not to provide support
for < V35 ).



3.  Usage
~~~~~~~~~
  TrimLog can only be used from the CLI/SHELL.
  The arguments available are:  NAME/A,ENTRIES/N,S=STRING/K,L=LINE/S


  NAME    - This is the name and path of the logfile to trim.


  ENTRIES - This is the number of entries you want left in the log.  This
            defualts to 10.  If you want more entries than there currently
            are available, then nothing will be changed.

            If the LINE option is selected, the defualt for ENTRIES is set
            at 100.


  SEARCH  - This new option now allows you to use a differnt search string
            than the defualt one (\q1----).  Simply type the string you
            want after the keyword, and it will use that as the identifier
            for the breaks.

            The searchstring is expected to be the START of the line at
            the start of each log entry.  I will at sometime place a
            feature to allow you to have the searchstring as part-way
            along a line, and still work correctly, but until now, you
            will have to put up with the way it works.


  L=LINE  - If either a L or LINE are present on their own in the command
            line, TrimLog will become a TrimFile program, reducing a text
            file to a certain number of lines from the bottom up.  Each
            line can be as long as you like, as it uses the CR character
            as the terminator.

            Eg.  If you had a text file which is 1000 lines long, and you
            went:  TRIMLOG <file> 500 LINE
            the file would now only contain the LAST 500 lines of the file



4.  History
~~~~~~~~~~~
V1.00   23 January 93
    * First release.

V1.01   25 January 93
    * Corrected error with write to disk routine.  Would add several
      nulls onto the end of the file.

V1.02   28 January 93
    * Added TrimFile routine to code.  Nows acts like TrimFile and reduces
      a text file to a certain number of lines.

V1.03   8 July 93
    * Changed the search string to work with the new log entries
    * Added option to work with FilteredLog files.

V1.04   4 August 93
    * Sycom changed the format of the Callers log again, and thus TrimLog
      was rendered useless.  I simply changed the search string again, and
      removed the need for the Filtered option.

V1.05   25 September 93
    * Sycom once again changed the format of the log files, and thus, I
      had to change the defualt search string.
    * Added an option for a varable search string.

V1.1    13 November 93
    * Removed need for certain routines
    * Got rid of old bug testing routines
    * Added larger work space to handle files with more lines

V1.11   29 Novemver 93
    * Fixed a STUPID bug where I was addressing a byte instead of a word


V1.20   4 September 94
    * Re-wrote.
      - Improved speed (200% increase minimum)
      - Less memory used
      - Decent error handling
      - Replaced search function with a more intellegent routine
      - No more bugs (hopefully)
      - Reduced code size by 48 bytes (OH WOW! :-)


V1.20a  5 September 94
    * Bug fixed - Preventing you from trimming a file over 128 lines long.
    * Bug fixed - Would loose a byte if you tried to trim a 1 line file.


V1.21   5 September 94
    * Added "fool" checking.  Now won't do anything if you try to trim a
      file to 0 entries/lines (delete the file if you want to do this :)
    * Removed over 150 bytes from binary by cleaning up code.



5.  Future
~~~~~~~~~~
  - Include a file requestor
  - Allow usage from WorkBench



6.  Credits / Copyrights
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Main code                   - David Dustin
    Ideas/Bug testing           - Renze de Ruiter

    TrimLog                     - (c) 1993-94 David Dustin
    Excelsior! BBS              - (c) 1992-94 Sycom
    Devpac 3                    - (c) 1985-92 HiSoft
    Kickstart/Workbench         - (c) 1985-93 Commodore-Amiga, Inc.