| Manage Your CMS Files With PKZIP
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.
|
