Saturday April 18 1998 19:22, Rickey Parrish wrote to All:
 RP>         I just installed Turbo Pascal 7.0 about 2 hours ago, and am now
 RP> trying to write a file viewing program for my BBS.  What I want to do,
 RP> is open a file and create an array with all the stuff in the file.  Hard
 RP> to put it into words,so heres the code (its crappy, so it'll probably be
 RP> just as hard to understand )
I'll do my best! :>
program FileView;
uses
  Crt;
const
  Max_Lines = 16000;
type
  String80 = String[80];   { That's just good habit }
  LineAry = array[1..Max_Lines] of ^String80; { Since we're using a LARGE
array,
                                            we'll have to use pointers }
var
  Lines: LineAry; { Reference to LineAry }
  f: Text;        { File we're dealing with }
  i,j: Word;      { We're not going to use any negatuve values, so we'll
                    use a Word instead. }
procedure Cleanup;
(*
    Frees memory allocated for strings.
*)
var
  Tempi: Word;
begin
  for Tempi := 1 to j do
    if Lines[j]  nil then Freemem(Lines[j], SizeOf(String80));
    { You should look up both Getmem and Freemem for more information.
      You should also look up pointers. They're easier to use than you
      think - really :> }
end;
begin
  i := 0;
  j := 0;
  { I had to change the filename for testing purposes }
  Assign(f, 'C:\BWAVE\DEFAULT.TAG');  { Just to be safe, always use drive
                                        letters }
  {$I-}       { Turn IO Checking off. Just in case there is a file error.
                Look up "$I:  Input/Output-Checking Switch" in the online
                help for more information. }
  Reset(f);
  {$I+}
  if IOResult  0 then  { If there was an error opening file... }
  begin
    Write('Error opening file! Aborting!');
    Halt(1);
  end;
  while not Eof(f) do
  begin
    Inc(i); { Instead of i:=i+1; Does the same thing, but looks nicer :> }
    Inc(j); { Ditto }
    if i >= Max_Lines then Break; { That makes sure you have room in
                                    the array }
    if Memavail < SizeOf(String80) * 2 then Break;
    Getmem(Lines[i], SizeOf(String80));   { Allocate memory for pointer }
    ReadLn(f, lines[i]^);
  end;
  Close(f);
  i := 0;
  while i < j do
  begin
    Inc(i);
    Writeln(lines[i]^);
    Delay(300);  { So I can read the lines }
    if Keypressed then  { For testing purposes }
    begin
      ReadKey;
      Break;
    end;
  end;
  CleanUp;  { *VERY* inportant that we clean up after ourselves! }
end.
In protected mode, that succeeded in reading in 16000 lines of my tagline
file, and under real mode, you'll likely have to reduce Max_Lines to about
5000 or so, which should allow you to read approximately that many lines
in. But you have to remember, under real mode, you're limited to 655320(?)
bytes on the heap, and each line takes up 81 bytes. But the heap is reduced
by any TSR's etc. that you have loaded, IOW - it's just better to compile
for protected mode :>
 RP>         Anyway, because its the largest text file I got, Im opening the
 RP> help file for the shotgun BBS.  Its just shy of 10,000 lines.  Just to
 RP> see how much of that I could read, I set the array line to
 RP> "lines[1..10000]" but it said "Error 22: Structure too large.".  It
That's because that array would be 810000 bytes, and you're limited to 64k
of variables under DOS. It sucks, but it's the way it works :/
 RP>         (BTW - I know that this will not work for a remote user on my
 RP> BBS.  Once I get the array and other crap worked out I will find a door
 RP> kit and use that)
I reccommend EDoor. It can be found at Tiny's BBS 905-723-1575, or FREQ'ed 
at 1:229/452 up to 28800 BPS, or in the file section on the web at 
http://tinys.oix.com/bbs/ in the programming section. It's about the 
easiest door library to use. It requires a 4 line config file (sysop name, 
BBS name, BPS rate, drop file type), to start the door library takes two 
lines (CfgFn := 'CONFIG_FILE.NAME'; and LoadCfg; ) then to use it, you just
use DWrite() instead of Write(), and DWriteLn() instead of WriteLn, etc..
                    Stewart Honsberger (AKA Blackdeath)
                   WWW - http://tinys.oix.com/blackdeath
                     E-Mail - blackdeath@tinys.oix.com
... Become a programmer - Make a living crashing your computer.
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