🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan25.102845.10144@iscsvax.uni.edu>, kraai4712@iscsvax.uni.edu writes:
> In article <1993Jan25.134613.1@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>, cctr132@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Nick FitzGerald, PC Software Consultant, CSC, UoC, NZ) writes:
>> Believe it or not, EDLIN (that most ghastly of DOS "utilities") may be
>> the answer to your problem.  Its (sole ?) virtue lies in the fact that
>> it reads from stdin, so can be driven by a script file.
>> 
>> I've never used it in this manner (I've never used full stop, he adds
>> proudly  8-) ), but have seen some fiendishly clever batches in PC Mag
>> based (in part) on this.
> 
> I have.  If an expository is generally desired, I'll post.  Let me know.
> 
> --jim

Rather than composing something, I'll refer you to a comprehensive expository
on the topic of redirection and it's use to manipulate programs such as EDLIN. 
In Simtel20 or any of its mirrors, in the MSDOS INFO directory, you will find a
file called REDIRECT.ZIP, written by Jan van Hulten in 1990.  The file unzips
to 600+ lines, so I hesitate to post it directly to NEWS.

While this only goes over redirection, there are other aspects such as
honest-to-goodness plain-vanilla-DOS string manipulation, counting and simple
arithmetic which deserve a similar treatment.  These have shown up in PC
Magazine's User-to-User column over the last couple of years.

If there's anyone who can't get it from Simtel20 or one of its mirrors,  e-mail
me and I'll send it, please specify uuencoded zip (13k) or straight ASCII (24k).
Offer good until Feb. 3.

--jim