IDCform
Copyright 1989 Infinity Design Concepts Inc
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
1052 Parkway Drive
Louisville, Kentucky 40217-2333
Voice: (502)636-1234 Data: (502)635-5471
This program is SHAREWARE and as such is user supported software.
If you find yourself using this software on a regular basis, then
you are requested to purchase a copy. IDCform is copyrighted software
and is the property of IDC. IDC makes no warranty as to the
suitability of this software for any specific purpose.
SHAREWARE REGISTRATION FEE: $15.00
OVERVIEW
IDCform is a DOOR program that may be executed by any BBS software
that can call external programs (such as GT's DOOR system). The
program intercepts all DOS vectors that would allow the user to
break out of the program, thus protecting BBS integrity. A template
file is constructed as input to the program. This template file
describes the information that is to be obtained from the user.
If the user decides to save his answers, then the information is
written to an ASCII text delimited file (SDF).
Command line syntax: IDCFORM <infile> <outfile>
This program will take keyboard input that is formatted according
to a template file <infile>. The format of the template file is
as follows;
%date
{ header text }
prompt for line 1: [-----]
prompt for line 2: [-----]
etc.
The {} characters are reserved and may not be used within the
file except to denote the header.
The [] characters are reserved and may not be used within the
file except to denote the format of the string to be entered.
Each prompt line must be terminated with a ":" as shown above,
this too, is a reserved character.
When invoked, IDCFORM will read the <infile> file, display
the text within the {} as a header. Then the first prompt line
will be displayed up to and including the ":".
Then the user will be allowed to enter a response string whose
format is controlled by the characters within the []. The format
may be controlled by the following characters on a character by
character basis, similar to dBASE formatting;
! - causes input character to be converted to uppercase
# - allows only numeric entry
ANY OTHER CHARACTER - allows anything to be entered
Note that all control characters are filtered out and all
character codes equal to or above 127 (DEL) are also filtered out.
RESERVED CHARACTERS %{}[]:
After the form is completed, the user is asked if he wishes to
save his answers. If he chooses to save the answers, then the
text is formatted and appended to the <outfile> file specified
on the command line. Each record is written in an ASCII delimited
format, that is, each field is separated by a comma and each
record is delimited with a CR,LF sequence (SDF format).
Note that the comma character is disallowed when entering text,
since it will be the field delimiter. Note also, that if <outfile>
does not exist, it will be created automatically.
ADDING A DATE STAMP
Note also that the current date can be added to the
end of the data in "00/00/00" format if the %Date string
is located at the beginning of the <infile> file.
SAMPLE FILE
%date - says add date.
Note that any characters in the file that are ahead of the first
squiggly bracket character will be ignored, with the exception of
the date string above.
{
IDC Purchase Order Form
}
First Name: [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
Last Name: [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
Address: [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
City: [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
State: [!!]
Zip: [#####-####]
Phone: [###-###-#########]
Credit Card VISA or MC (VS/MC): [!!]
Card Number: [###################]
Expiration date month/year: [##/##]
Product(s) you wish to order: [----------------------------------------------]
Disk format 3.5" or 5.25" (3/5): [#]
Comments/Special instructions: [---------------------------------------------]
ERRORLEVEL RETURNS
IDCform returns information about what transpired during the
IDCform session. If IDCform is executed from a batch file, then
this information can be used for other features, such as writing
a parallel file of user names that should match name for name
the names in the <outfile>. This can be used to spot abusive users.
GT, for example, always stores the last callers name in the
GTUSER.BBS file, thus you could use the following command to
update the parallel file;
TYPE GTUSER.BBS >> TRACK.BBS
This would append the current users name to the TRACK.BBS file.
This action can be made contigent upon the user saving his
answers by utilizing the following errorlevels.
ERRORLEVEL MEANING
0 - all went OK, answers saved in <outfile>
1 - <infile> not present on command line or unable to read
2 - user did not want to save his answers
3 - file format error in <infile>
4 - <outfile> not present on command line or unable to read
<end file>