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   SplitIndex.rexx (97.Mar.17)

   Author: dhomas trenn
    EMail: dhomas@youngmonkey.ca
      WWW: www.youngmonkey.ca

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INTRODUCTION
------------

As everyone knows, the Aminet INDEX is BIG, and becoming unmanagable as
a single file.  Also, it contains many listings that some people are
not at all interested in.

Many people have tried to reduce the amount of time required to search
through this file by writing programs with numerous search options.
Most of these programs require many hours to pre-parse the INDEX file.
In my opinion, this is unacceptable.

I find it easier to just double click on the INDEX file in DirOpus and
do a quick search.  But this requires a lot of memory to load the full
INDEX file.  My solution, SplitIndex.rexx, a program that took me about
10 minutes to code.

SplitIndex.rexx is a small ARexx program that parses the INDEX file,
filtering out any unwanted information (configurable) and spliting the
file into separate files for each directory.  It only takes a few
minutes to parse the entire file.  It is fast enough to do on a regular
basis.


CONFIGURATION
-------------

The following variables can be defined within the ARexx program itself.
They are at the very top of the program and can be edited with any text
editor.

  Index
  -----
    Defines the location of the INDEX file.  If this file can not be
    found the program will error and abort.  Upon completion of the
    program this index file will be deleted.


    Example: Index = "TEMP:INDEX"

  IndexesPath
  -----------
    Defines the path to store the split index files.  This must be the
    full path.  This path must exist already.  The program will not
    create it.  If the directory can not be found the program will
    error and abort.


    Example: IndexesPath = "Storage:PD/.indexes/"
             IndexesPath = "Storage:"

  IgnoreDir
  ---------
    Defines any directories that should be filtered out.  All sub
    directories will also be ignored.  Multiple entries MUST be
    separated with a single space.

    Example: IgnoreDir = "demo mods"
             IgnoreDir = "demo"
             IgnoreDir = ""                < to disable Dir filtering


  IgnoreSub
  ---------
    Defines any sub directories that should be filtered out.

    Example: IgnoreSub = "biz/cloan comm/ambos"
             IgnoreSub = "biz/cloan"
             IgnoreSub = ""                < to disable Sub filtering


STARTING
--------

From the Shell:

  rx SplitIndex

 PERMSSN    UID  GID    PACKED    SIZE  RATIO METHOD CRC     STAMP          NAME
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
[generic]                 1142    2704  42.2% -lh5- 8ff1 Mar 17  1997 SplitIndex.readme
[generic]                  644    1337  48.2% -lh5- 5fd6 Mar 17  1997 SplitIndex.rexx
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
 Total         2 files    1786    4041  44.2%            Mar 18  1997