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Manage Your CMS Files With PKZIP
for the Reporting to the MAX
for the Reporting to the MAX
Included free with Reporting to the MAX's DOS Programs
are PKZIP and PKUNZIP - compression tools that allow
you to save valuable disk space and download/upload
time.
WITH OUR DOS PRODUCTS, we include a third-party product
named PKZIP. This product is a very handy shareware
utility from PKWARE, Inc. It is a file compression/decompression
program that we utilize in our backup/restore menu
option. When you backup or restore using the menu
options in Reporting to the MAX including Point of Sale and Non-profit Versions, our program shells
out to the DOS operating system and executes PKZIP.EXE
to backup or PKUNZIP.EXE to restore files. This usage
is a very basic example of PKZIP's capability.
When used from the DOS command line, PKZIP can be
a very powerful tool. Its power comes from a series
of command line switches that invoke different options
for managing files. You can read about these options
by typing PKZIP /? on the command line and pressing
the ENTER key. This brings up the on-line help for
PKZIP. By using the on-line help, you can learn to
backup, restore, and transport files easily and safely.
(Our install program copies PKZIP and PKUNZIP into
the CMS data file directory. Change to this directory
in DOS to use PKZIP from the command line).
One of the most useful features of PKZIP is its ability
to compress files to a fraction of their original
size and span them across multiple floppy diskettes.
Without PKZIP, the task of storing large data files
on floppy diskettes for backup or transport is cumbersome.
PKZIP can compress an unlimited number of data files
into one file (called a zip file) and span the file
across multiple diskettes. The command line syntax
to do this is: PKZIP -& ZIPFILE.ZIP *.*
In the above example, PKZIP is followed by a hyphen
(-) and an ampersand (&). The ampersand is the
command line switch which tells PKZIP to span the
zip file across multiple diskettes. All command line
switches in PKZIP are preceded by a hyphen, and followed
by the name of the zip file, which can be any DOS
acceptable file name with the extension .ZIP. Following
the zip file name is the name of the file(s) to include
in the zip file. You can use DOS wildcards to specify
which files to include, such as *.*in the above example,
which tells PKZIP to include all the files in the
current directory.
PKZIP is a versatile and powerful tool. With the
appropriate command line switches, it can make data
file management much easier. It has the ability to
compress data for storage or transport by diskette,
tape, zip disk, or modem. It can make backups of your
data and update your backups by overwriting only files
that have been modified since the last backup. It
can scramble and password protect data so that unwanted
intruders cannot access it. It is a must for anyone
who transports large amounts of data from one computer
to another.
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