<<< A r c T o o l >>> Automatic File Archival System ------------------------------ User's Manual Program and manual written by Tyson Gill Copyright (C) 1990 GT Software Distribution and Support Policy: ArcTool is shareware. If you use it for anything more then evaluation, you owe the author $20. Evaluation is defined as a short testing period to determine whether it is something you MAY use. Evaluation is not months or years of use to be "really, really, - really sure" you are 110% satisfied or to ensure that you have already gotten your $15 dollars worth out of it. I love talking to my registered shareware owners and responding to their ideas and suggestions. However, DON'T CONTACT ME IF YOU ARE NOT REGISTERED!!! You can't imagine how many people have called me up with a line like "Yea, I really absolutely promise to send in a donation if only you will...". None of those has ever come through. The people who develop a great relationship are those who send in their contribution and then later call or write with suggestions or questions. Maybe the reason they are always so enjoyable to talk to is because they don't play silly games over $20. Send your shareware contribution to: Tyson Gill 12114 Kirton Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44135-3612 Registered owners can obtain a free program update at any time by sending in a disk and a self addressed and stamped disk mailer. Send these along along with your registration fee to get the latest version right away. Registered Owners can also send feedback or questions to: GEnie: T.GILL7 Compuserve: 73467,777 (checked less often then GEnie) Phone/Voice Mail/Fax: (216) 252-8255 ** DISCLAIMER ** ArcTool can move and delete user data files. In these operations there is always the possibility of irrecoverable file loss. GT Software is not in any way responsible or liable for any misuse of the program or any accidental or intentional damage incurred as a result of it's use. *** WARNING *** ArcTool can move and delete files! Be certain to customize your setup file and try the program in test mode before using it for the first time. INTRODUCTION If you are like me, you generate lots of junk and only clean up the junk when you need room to add more junk. When the files hit the ceiling of your hard disk, it is time to clean house again. At that point you are so miffed at having to tidy up that you probably toss out things that you will regret later. Arc programs make great compressed attics to toss junk into on the chance you could use it later. However, they are not typically used routinely for that purpose since it is too much trouble. Arc shells like the fine program from Charles Johnson make it it easy to manage arc files, but you still have to manually take time to clean house. AutoArc is designed to automatically put your files into attics and clean up your hard disk so that you don't have to be troubled with routine housekeeping. You must have an arc program to work with AutoArc. Any arc program should work. FILES AUTOARC.TOS(TTP) This program is the file manager. It can be run manually as needed but the system works best when it is run daily or weekly depending on how many files you generate. You can put the program in your auto folder if you do not mind waiting for your system to boot up, get in the habit of running it daily before you break for lunch, or you can use a scheduler such as cron in a unix shell or Codekeys from Codehead Software to run it at a regular scheduled time. If you rename the TOS program to a TTP (Tos Takes Parameters) program, then TOS will prompt you to enter the name of the setup file to use. AUTOARC.SET This is the set up file which tells AUTOARC.TOS what to do. This file must be present in the same folder as AUTOARC.TOS in order for the program to run. If you are running AutoArc as a TTP program, then you can pass it the name of a setup file to use. If no parameter is given, AutoArc will look for AUTOARC.SET in it's own folder. AUTOSET.PRG AutoSet configures your AUTOARC.SET file through the use of an easy dialog box. AUTOARC.ALG This is a running log of file archives. AutoArc saves a record of files that have been archived, the date the archive occurred, the name of the arc file, and the time, date, and size of the archived file. If this file gets too big, you can rename or delete it. AutoArc will start a fresh arc log. You can display, edit, or print this file to look back at the archive log. AUTOARC.DLG This is a running log of all files which have been deleted. It gives the time and date of each deletion. As with the ALG file, if it gets too big, you can rename or delete it. AutoArc will start a fresh delete log. You can display, edit, or print this file to look back at the delete log. AUTOARC.AND This is a system file which maintains a record of files which have been arced and are scheduled to be deleted. If the Modification Check option is used this file will be accessed to prevent re-arcing unmodified files. This file is for use by AutoArc only and should not be modified by the user. CONFIGURING YOUR BACKUP STRATEGY Run AUTOSET.PRG to configure your AUTOARC.SET file. AutoSet will present a dialog box allows you to set up any number of backup strategies. Use the next and previous arrows to display each backup definition. The "delete" and "add" buttons are use to remove or add new definitions. For each definition, you will see the following lines: File path: _______________________ Enter the source path of the files to archive. Use wildcards such as *.c if you wish. You can enter the path manually or select it using the 'Find' button following the line. Note that a path must end with a backslash or AutoArc will attempt to interpret it as an arc file name. PROMPT then ARCHIVE after ___ days Select the word "archive" if you wish to archive files from the source file path. Select the word "prompt" if you want AutoArc to prompt to confirm each archive action. Enter the number of days to archive after in the blank. This is the age of the file. Don't re-arc unmodified files Select the check mark before this line to prevent the re-arcing of files which have already been arced but not yet deleted. Use this option to scan the AND file to prevent re-arcing if the file has not been modified. AutoArc will always arc if the time, date, or size have changed. Be warned that this can become time consuming if your archive base gets very large. If you are scheduling off hours you may not care, but otherwise you may want to design your housekeeping to avoid the situation or to maintain separate smaller logs. PROMPT then DELETE after ___ days Select the word "delete" if you wish to delete files from the source file path. Select the word "prompt" if you want AutoArc to prompt to confirm each delete action. Enter the number of days to delete after in the blank. This is the age of the file. Arc path: _____________________________ Enter the path specification for the arc file to be created. If the path specification contains an arc file name, that file only will be used. If the path contains no name, a name will be created daily, weekly, or monthly according to user option. Name arc: Daily Weekly Monthly Select "Daily", "Weekly", or "Monthly" for new arc file names if no specific name is given in the arc path specification. The arc file names are made up of a date string such as 17JUN91.ARC. Arc prog: ____________________________ Enter here or use the 'Find' file selector to specify the path and name of the arc program to use. For example, C:\ARC.TTP. Arc add command: _________ Enter here the arc program add command. This is usually simply 'a'. Test button: When enabled, AutoArc will not actually archive or delete any files. It will only display status messages so that you can pre-screen program operation. USE THIS OPTION TO TEST YOUR AUTOARC SETUP EACH TIME YOU MODIFY THE SET UP FILE. Note that the demo version forces the test option on no matter how the flag is set. When testing, AutoArc will not modify the ALG or DLG log files. Instead it will create new 'A' and 'D' files for you to inspect. Verify button: When enabled, AutoArc will give you the option of aborting the program after it displays the files it plans to modify, but before it takes any action. You will want this option off if your are scheduling the program to run unattended. Hold button: When enabled, AutoArc will wait for a keypress before terminating. This is useful if you wish to see what the program has done before the screen clears. If you are scheduling AutoArc you may want to disable this option to free the computer to execute other programs. Also, some alternate desktops like Neodesk from Gribnif Software have an option to pause after execution. If you have such an option turned on, you will not need the Hold option (rename to AUTOARC.TOS). SUGGESTIONS AND TIPS * Set the number of days equal to 0 to arc or delete immediately. * For most purposes you may like to arc files weekly and delete immediately or arc daily and delete weekly. * Note that if you arc daily and do not delete, the files will be updated each time you arc. To avoid this, you could use the freshen option, f, instead of the add option, a, to tell your arc program not to re-arc unmodified files. You must have previously created your arc file, however. (This applies if the Modification Check Flag is set to 0). * Enable the Modification Check flag (set to 1) if there are many days between arcing and deleting your files. This will prevent unmodified files from being re-arced. Be aware however, that if your system does not update the date and time when a file is modified and the modification does not change the total file size, AutoArc would not update the file. * You may wish to either allow AutoArc to update the same arc file with the current version of a file, or create a new time-date arc each day to store the latest version. The latter option may be nice for programmers who would like to keep a date-stamped history of modifications. In that case you could name a backup directory for each program and store only it's archives inside. * If you let AutoArc create arc names based on the current date, your files will be nicely organized by day and will not get too large. When arc files get big, the archiving operations can slow down dramatically. This scheme also makes it easy to finally destroy old files. * There is no reason that you cannot have local versions of AUTOARC.TOS in various locations with specialized SET files. * You could set up a batch file to execute AutoArc after a particular program executes. * You can use the move (m) arc option to let that program delete your files immediately after arcing if desired. This will be faster than having AutoArc do it but you sacrifice the delayed delete and the history log. * If you are used to using minicomputer systems, you are probably comfortable with automatic system handling of particular file types. On some systems, for example, all files with a TMP file type are deleted daily. All files with a TXT file type are purged daily. OUT files are deleted weekly. Users just know to use or not use these reserved file types depending on how they want the system to handle the file. You can use the same sorts of conventions on your microcomputer using AutoArc. If you are working on memos, you may want them arced and deleted daily. Use say a MEM file type. DOC and TXT files may be arced after one day and deleted weekly. OUT files could be just deleted after 3 days. REP could be long term reports which are just arced when modified but never deleted. Establish whatever system suits you. POSSIBLE ENHANCEMENTS There is a half done companion program for ArcTool called ArcLink. This accessory would allow you to search for and extract particular archived files. It would refer to the ArcTool log files and allow you to find files by name, date, arc, strings, etc. This would complete the system by allowing you to easily find and retrieve your archived files. If you are interested in ArcLink, don't write and tell me that you would send in your ArcTool donation IF ONLY... Instead, communicate your interest by slipping a note to that effect in with your shareware donation. Promises don't carry much weight, but money talks...