::::::::::::::::::::::: :::########::##:::::::: :::## ## :## ::::::: :::## :::## :## ::::::: :::######## :## ::::::: :::## ## :## ::::::: :::## :::## :######:::: :::: :::: :: ::: ::::::::::::::::::::::: - ARCHIVELISTER - (C) 1991 Oliver Wagner, All Rights Reserved 1.Overview ---------- AL is a utility designed for viewing the contents of archives generated by file archiver like ARC, LHARC or PKAZIP. It can be used on FD-Disks where large portions (e.g. source codes) are shipped in compressed form (think of Fred's Library), or with BBS software to allow user to examine archives before download. 2.Why use AL? ------------- AL can be used to examine several different archive formats (see list) although it is quite smaller than *ANY* of the archiver which's archives AL is able to listen. AL is fully standalone and be used from Workbench as a default tool for archives. AL is safe for use with certain corrupt archives: Division by Zero hacks (think of the percentage generation), "loop" archives (files with negative length cause some archiver to loop). AL attempts to preserve the "look and feel" of the original archivers, although it will provide as much information as possible. 3.Copyright ----------- AL is (C) 1991 by Oliver Wagner Landsberge 5 4322 Sprockhoevel West Germoney Voice ++49 (0)2339/7536 Data ++49 (0)2339/5194 24h Support-BBS O.WAGNER@AWORLD-II.ZER Oliver Wagner of 2:241/5604@FIDO AL is a copyrighted product, all rights reserved. However, a limited license is granted to copy and use AL for free provided that - AL is distributed with this documentation file, "AL.doc" - both AL and AL.doc are unmodified - no charge is made for distributing or copying AL or AL.doc, nor for media containing AL or AL.doc - AL is not distributed or used with commercial software IT IS NOT ALLOWED TO INCLUDE <> WITH COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN AGREEMENT FROM THE OWNER OF THE COPYRIGHT OF AL! REPEAT: AL MUST NOT BE INCLUDED WITH COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE PACKAGES, LIKE BBS SOFTWARE OR *ANYTING* ELSE! EVERY VIOLATION OF THESE RULES WILL BE PROSECUTED BY LAW! THE AUTHOR MAKES NO WARRANTY FOR THE FUNCTIONALITY OF AL - USE IT COMPLETELY ON YOUR OWN RISK! Bugreports, hints, suggestions and donations are welcome, but not required. What about sending me a nice postcard if you use and like AL? 3.5.Center of doc file ---------------------- This is (approx.) the center of the doc file. 4.CLI Usage ----------- Very simple: AL AL will examine the archive type and output the contents, if possible. You can redirect output to a file in order to output AL's listing to an online user. There may be certain errors which AL can display; normally you could guess from the text itself: "backward skip" and "division by zero" denote corrupt or bomb archives. AL is fully "PURE" (thanks "cres.o") and can savely be made resident with 1.3 shell, 2.0 shell or the ARP resident manager. 5.WB Usage ---------- Set AL as your default tool for the archive files; if the user double-clicks the archive's icon, AL will load, open a window and do the same as it has been started from the CLI. AL will wait for a before closing the window. 6.Supported Archives -------------------- Currently supported are: ARC LHARC/LZ PKAZIP/PKZIP APE (percentage output is different, but that is a problem of APE, not of AL :-) ZOO (recognized, but not listed yet) WARP (disk tracker) ZAP (disk tracker) ZOOM (disk tracker) POWERPACKER datafiles DMS (disk tracker) More archiver and disk-tracker are planned for the future; if you have information about archive formats, feel free to suply them to me so that I can include that in future releases of AL. 7.Last word ----------- §$&%=/$"! 8.History --------- V0.1: first release version V0.2: added WARP profiler added ZAP recoginition added APE lister added ZIP date cleaned up internal date generation pure code; can be made resident now. shipped crunched with TurboImploder; can still be made resident V0.3: (not public) added ZOOM recognition fixed some internal errors (e.g. ZOOM would be reported as a ZOO archive...) V0.4: (not public) added PP20 data files V0.5: added DMS recognition and profiler V0.5a: minor change: removed misrecogniation of LHA archives (sometimes reported as corrupt ARC archives)