======================================================================
      $VER: ZPCheckZC.doc 36.4 (22.2.94) Copyright (c) 1994 Ralph Seichter
     ======================================================================


   PURPOSE:

      ZPCheckZC ist a tool to check ZCONNECT(tm) data buffers for consistency.
   A return value of 0 (RETURN_OK) signals a puffer which looks ok, a value of
   5  (RETURN_WARN)  will  be returned when there are detectable errors.  This
   behaviour  makes embedding ZPCheckZC in OS scripts an easy task.  ZPCheckZC
   can also recover valid segments of erroneous files.


   REQUIREMENTS:

      ZPCheckZC  requires  dos.library  V36+ and the utility.library, both are
   part of the OS 2.04 distribution set.  This tool was designed to run on any
   Amiga platform with Kick 37.175 or better.


   COMMAND TEMPLATE:

      ZPCheckZC FILE/A,BUFFERS/K/N,PATH/K,PICKY/S

      Of course FILE is the name of the file which is to be checked. The PICKY
   switch  will determine which errors are considered fatal.  Being picky, any
   error will treated as a fatal one and the scan immediately aborts.  Without
   the  PICKY switch (which is off by default), ZPCheckZC will try to scan the
   buffer  file as far as possible.  The scan will currently only abort if the
   message  size  header info "LEN:" is not found for a message or if the size
   is  considered  invalid.  BUFFERS determines how many buffers of 1024 Bytes
   each  will  be reserved in memory (default = 32).  If you specify an output
   PATH,  ZPCheckZC  will attempt to recover parts of the input file and write
   defective messages to a seperate file (note that you shouldn't use PATH and
   PICKY together as the scan would stop after the first error detected).


   USAGE EXAMPLE:

            [1] Shell $ ZPCheckZC dh2:data/foo PATH t:
            ZPCheckZC 36.4 (22.2.94) Copyright © Ralph Seichter
            19904-20083: missing "BET:"
            21201-21472: missing header data
            29857-30278: missing "ABS:" "MID:"
            41468-42005: invalid "EDA:"
            42234-42383: warning, no message body
            42743-42997: invalid length, exiting
            File "dh2:data/foo" has errors.

      As  you  can  see,  ZPCheckZC was invoked without the PICKY option which
   would have aborted the scan after the first error. In each report line, you
   are  first presented the byte offset range of the header in which the error
   was  found  (<start of header>-<end of header>), then the error description
   is stated.

      The first error of this example reports that in the message header found
   between  offset  19904 and offset 20083 of file "foo", the header "BET:" is
   missing  (this header is a vital one).  The second error is given when some
   vital header wasn't followed by any data.  Error number three is similar to
   number  one,  error  number four states an invalid entry for header "EDA:",
   which is the message date.  The following warning message is displayed when
   there's no message body (message size equals 0, this is no error). The last
   error  reports  an  invalid  entry  for  the  message size "LEN:", which is
   currently the only situation from which ZPCheckZC can't recover.

     Note that, for this example, ZPCheckZC will create the files "t:foo.good"
   and  "t:foo.bad" (empty output files will be deleted when processing ends).
   If  you  want to use the current directory as the output path, just specify
   PATH="" (the empty string).


   COPYRIGHT NOTICE:

      ZPCheckZC is Copyright (c) 1994 Ralph Seichter. You may however make any
   number  of copies for personal use and you may give copies to your friends,
   as long as you don't charge them a fee for doing so.  You may *NOT* include
   ZPCheckZC in any software package whatsoever without my written permission!
   You can contact me via the following addresses (e-mail preferred):

            Ralph Seichter          zodiac@darkness.gun.de
            Deutscher Ring 6
            50354 Huerth, GERMANY

      ZCONNECT(tm)  is  a registered trademark of ZERBERUS GmbH.  ZERBERUS(tm)
   is a registered trademark of Wolfgang Mexner.


   DISCLAIMER:

      YOU USE THIS SOFTWARE ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK !!!  I'm not responsible
   for  any  damage,  whatsoever,  which might possibly result from using this
   program.  Don't come running to me if ZPCheckZC causes your neighborhood to
   go up in flames...  :)


   HISTORY:

      V36.1 (02.02.94): First public release.

      V36.2 (09.02.94): BUFFERS and message recovery via PATH added.

      V36.3 (16.02.94): Bug fix. V36.2 reported empty ROT-Strings as an error,
                        which of course was an incorrect behaviour.

      V36.4 (22.02.94): Bug fix. V36.3 treated a message size of 0 as an error
                        and aborted. New V36.4 will continue after printing a
                        warning message. Empty output files will be deleted.