This document contains some basic getting started information, general information, and registration information.
Most of the usage information is available as online context sensitive help. Pressing the F1 key will bring up the help information about the current menu selection.
Grep stands for "Get Regular Expression and Print" and is a text searching tool that was first developed for unix systems and has been ported to most operating systems.
This PM version of grep is designed as a user friendly application. It is designed for a multitasking environment and the search takes place on a separate thread to minimize the time that the wait icon is displayed. It will also run in a low priority idle mode to reduce the impact the search has on the other active programs.
The often cryptic command line options have been replaced with easy to use menu selections. The output of the search is sent to a PM window and the user has easy access to all of the information that was found by the program.
To reduce the overhead, the results are buffered until the search is completed and then written to the results window. To indicate that the search is still active, the small icon at the left of the title bar will change color as an activity indicator. The color change depends on the search results, so it does not change at a fixed rate.
This version of grep does not support the full set of "regular expressions" that most of the command line versions of grep support. It does support two wild-card characters. The '*' character represents multiple characters and the character '?' represents one character. Thus a search pattern of "h*e" would match both "house" and "horse". A search pattern of "ho?se" would also match both words. The wildcard action of the '*' character is not limited to a single character or word, it can represent multiple words. The limit in the search is that the search pattern must found in a single line. The program reads one line at a time from the source file, with a line being terminated by a newline character or characters.
DH-Grep-PM is a shareware program and if you continue to use the program you should register it. DH-Grep-PM does not have any code to check on how long the program has been in use, so it is up to the user to determine a reasonable trial period. The shareware version of DH-Grep-PM is fully functional, but a registration prompt will be displayed when the program is started and when it is closed.
A REXX CMD file is provided to install DH-Grep-PM.
The install file will prompt the user for the destination directory and will copy the files to that directory and will create a desktop object for DH-Grep-PM.
The installation routine will copy the desired executable and create a program object on the desktop.
If the user wants to use an editor other than the system editor E.EXE, the editor CMD file (edit_cmd.cmd) must be modified. This file must be located in the working directory and the editor must be in the search path or the path must be included with the editor name. The default edit_cmd.cmd file consists of the line shown below.
e %1
DH-Grep-PM was designed to be easy to use and there is context sensitive help available for most if not all of the menu selections. Pressing the F1 key will bring up the help information.
The user must enter the search parameters before the search can be started. The Enter Search Parameters selection is located under the Configure Search selection on the menu bar. Once the user has entered the search parameters, the search may be started. The Start selection on the menu bar is disabled until the search parameters are entered.
The Stop selection on the menu bar is disabled until the search has been started. Selection Stop will bring up a dialog box that prompts the user to verify the stop request. If a file is opened for searching when the stop request is made, the search will terminate after the file has been processed. Then the results of the search will be displayed in the results window.
If the user places the cursor (not the mouse pointer) on a file name in the results window and then double clicks with the right mouse button, that file will be loaded into the editor specified in the edit_cmd.cmd file. The easiest way to move the cursor to the desired line or file name is to double click on the line or file name with the left mouse button.
The number of files that may be opened is not limited by DH-Grep-PM, but may have a practical limit due to the memory used by each instance of the editor.
This utility will only run on OS/2 Warp and later releases.
Registered users feel good about supporting OS/2 developers and enjoy these additional benefits:
Registered users of DH-Grep-PM will have access to two additional executable files that were compiled with the 486 and 586 compiler options. These versions will offer some performance improvement for users with 468, Pentium, or equivalent CPUs.
Registered users are supported via e-mail. Send help requests and good ideas to me at dwhawk@tulsaconnect.com.
There are two places to register DH-Grep-PM. Through BMT Micro and directly with the author.
Registration through BMT Micro:
BMT Micro will accept credit cards and will be more convenient for OS/2 users outside the United States. BMT Micro's price to register DH-Grep-PM is $10.00 (US Dollars). BMT Micro also has an FTP area where the registered version can be obtained after registration.
BMT Micro is also setup to distribute DH-Grep-PM on floppy disk for those users who do not have internet access. There will be an additional fee for shipping and handling of floppy disk requests.
Direct registration:
Stuff small bills, gold coins, diamonds or even checks (US banks only, please) valued at $10.00 (US dollars) into an envelope and mail to:
Don Hawkinson
4555 N Hillcrest
Wichita KS, 67220-3832
USA
Please don't send $100 bills (or larger) in the mail without purchasing full postal insurance. Also, no change will be returned because it is absolutely unsafe, and unwise, to send cash through the mail.
The registered version of DH-Grep-PM will distributed via a download link on my web page, so make certain that your e-mail address is included with your registration fee. I will need it to send you the user name and password required for the download.
Registered users will be notified of updates via e-mail.
Registration covers all 1.xx versions of DH-Grep-PM.