X P K - T E S T   V 2.1

                           © 1995 by Anders Nordby

                   F R E E L Y   D I S T R I B U T A B L E


Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~

I use xpk libraries for auto-(de)compression of my hd, and I wanted an easier
way of comparing them as I saw many new ones released. I couldn't find any
already released utilities which did what I wanted, so I made XPKTEST.rexx
instead. It is an arexx script which tests compression and decompression
speed of 1-many xpk libraries on 1-many files. The crunch factor is ofcourse
also included. The output is clean and tidy (IMHO).

PS! If you have trouble with too little hd-space, buy DiskExpander today!
XPK-compression is fast, reliable, flexible, efficient etc. In other words :
everything dblspace/stacker for ms-dos never will be!

Requirements
~~~~~~~~~~~~

The XPK package. Preferably som more (and newer) xpk-libraries.
Kickstart 3.0 (At least you have to have arexx and the cli-commands I use).
A running rexx-server.

Installation
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Copy the files wherever you'd like them. (i.e. in "REXX:")

Configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Click the CreateConfig.rexx icon :)

You might also want to load the configfile in an editor, and put a ";" in
front of all libraries you don't want to test. The configfile will be put in
"S:".

Usage
~~~~~

Template: FILENAME/S,LIB/K

"/S" = The option is a switch. Enter the name of the option to specify that
       option.
"/K" = Always use the option's keyword before the argument if the argument
       is given.

Examples:

"RX xpkTEST.rexx ram:#? lib SQSH" - Will test all files in the Ram Disk
                                    (excluding files in subdirectories) with
                                    xpkSQSH.library. "RX xpkTEST.rexx" - Will
bring up a filerequester. The file(s) you select
                    will be tested with all valid libraries mentioned in the
                    configfile.

NB!  * Arguments can be put in any order you'd like.
     * Giving a filename with spaces in it (i.e. "Bourbon Street") won't
       work. You can, however, also test these files by using wildcards (i.e.
       "Bourbon?Street" or "#?").
     * This script will not work with libraries which needs a password (for
       encryption). Such libraries are i.e. DLTA, FEAL, IDEA and ENCO.
     * I've experienced that the RDCN library is lossy. So make sure you do
       a backup if you want to test this one!
     * All usage is at your own risk. I take no responsibilities.

History/todo
~~~~~~~~~~~~

V1.0: * First official release

V2.0: * Included wildcard support.
      * Better output.
      * Single-/multilibrary mode included.
      * Better error-checking (no more wobbly output!)
      * More accurate timing (using arexx's built-in functions instead of
        dos' date command).
      * ++

V2.1: * Kilobytes per second columns included.
      * Output uses self-adjusting columns.
      * Bugs removed from the CreateConfig-script.
      * More accurate timing : pack from disk to disk, unpack from disk to
        ram.


Todo
~~~~
      * ?

Feedback
~~~~~~~~

If you find these scripts useful or interesting at all, or if you have any
suggestions on how to improve these scripts, please let me know. Contact me
in any of the following ways:

...by bbs:

Matrix (A)BBS    :  +47 38046718
AmigaZone (A)BBS :  +47 67583409

...by snailmail:

Anders Nordby
Kastetskogen 66
3218 Sandefjord
Norway
(Phone: +47 33451010)

...make my brother forward me an e-mail:

94petter@kihelektro.kih.no