                                 HOLD.EXE
                              --------------

HOLD is a simple DOS utility that prints a countdown (and an optional text
line) on the screen and exits when the time is up.  This allows your batch
file to wait a specified time before performing its next task.

Basic help is available by typing the program name by itself on the
command line.


                            HOLD is COMMENT-WARE
                          -------------------------

HOLD is provided at no cost, but if you find it useful, please offer
suggestions as to how it can be improved.  This program is provided without
warranties of any kind and any user should be aware that they use it at their
own risk.  

                               John Deweerd
                           Compuserve: 76360,3216
                        Internet: johnrd@axionet.com

                                  -=oOo=-

Usage:

In it's simplest form, HOLD needs only to know how many seconds to hold for:
---------------

HOLD 10

will produce a ten second countdown starting with:


                                     00:00:10

HOLD 00:10:00

will  hold for 10 minutes.

HOLD 10:00:00 

will hold for 10 hours.


Text may also be printed to the screen so that someone coming upon it won't
think the Enterprise is set to self destruct...
---------------
HOLD 10 "waiting for wonderful"

will produce a countdown starting with:


                                  WAITING FOR WONDERFUL
                                         00:00:10


A week day may also be specified.
---------------
HOLD 10 sun

will only run on Sundays.  It will also only run ONCE on any given day.
The program will ask if you want to run again, but defaults to not running.

If you need it to run automated a number of times on the same day:

HOLD creates a small file called 'HOLD.LOG' which contains the date.
By deleting this file, HOLD will not know it has run already and will run
without question.

Text may also be used when a weekday is specified.
---------------

HOLD 10 sun "weekend text"

	

Notes:
-The countdown may be terminated at any time by pressing the <ESC> key.
-The zero's in the time string may be eliminated. I.e. '00:10:00'  and ':10:'
are equivalent.
-If the time string does not contain colons, seconds are assumed.
-The optional text must be in quotes.
