Category : System Diagnostics for your computer
Archive   : FT119.ZIP
Filename : FT119.DOC

FILETYPE Release 1.19

(C)Copyright PaoHsin Pi, 1986, 1987

All Rights Reserved

Data 1:(714)964-2034
Data 2:(714)966-5250
Voice :(714)646-1959






FILETYPE Version 1.19 (C)Copyright PaoHsin Pi, 1987.
All Rights Resreved. 10/24/87 Issue.

PREWORD:

This product is now supplied as a shareware,
which means you the user may use it and if you find
FILETYPE fascinating please send $15.00 to support my
efforous work. User who contributes will entitle to
become a registered user and receive the next release
of FILETYPE by mail.

FILETYPE maynot be sold illegally for profits
by any individual without my prior knowledge. Any
cost should only be made on the media contains the
complete package of FT otherwise with agreements from
the author.

For any inquires write to PAOHSIN PI
2039 Charle
Costa Mesa, CA 92627


=== Read this First ===


Hardware Requirements

To run FILETYPE you need an IBM PC or compatible
computer including the basics:

DOS 2.0 or higher
At least 198K of free memory
One double sided disk drive
A Color monitor prefered

Only Paul Pi's System is a 100% FILETYPE standard.

Optional equipment include:

Harddisk or RAM disk maybe used to aid faster
disk access for FILETYPE reading large files.





Backup disks

For your convenice, FILETYPE is not copy protected.
You should make backup copies of FILETYPE and give
them to your good friends for safe keeping.

Making backup disks protect you from accidents like
deletions, damages, etc.

If you want your own copy of FILETYPE just send $7
to
PaoHsin Pi
2039 Charle
Costa Mesa, CA 92627

a lattest version will be mailed to you.







=== How to use this Manual ===

This guide is supplied to you as a substitute for some
personal advisement not as a professional
documentation. Every effort has been made to assure
the accuracy of the information and concise in this
user guide. User is advised that the information are
subject to change without prior notice. FT users
are strongly recommanded to consult a newest guide
for the lattest information.














=== Introduction ===

What is FILETYPE?

FILETYPE is a comprehensive information extracting
utility. It contains facilities for describing files,
both simple ones and complex intercompiled ones;for
viewing, searching and tracing records in the files;
and for prepare reports from the information in the
files.













How does it work?

FILETYPE is a file utility with several personalities
it controls an entire application and thereby reduce
the need for, or replace, computer professionals or
checking out a file by oneselves. The utility is
structured so that it can be used by non-programmers as
well as programmers. The rules in FILETYPE are
logical, and an attempt has been made to avoid cryptic,
computer-inspired notations. This permits user to
infer from what they know new combinations which apply
to FILETYPE COMMAND(PROMPT) LINE. The importance of
this cannot be overstressed. It is far simpler to
expend by analogy than to search for an exact example,
in many cases.





The elements of FILETYPE

FILETYPE 1.18 is qualitatively different from all other
file utilities in more ways that can be detailed in a
short introduction.

To start with, FILETYPE lets one use its COMMAND LINE
to input options correspond to the most powerful and
sophisticated features available for the IBM PC.
Designed for people who aren't satisfied with a fixed,
alike utilities or unintriguing programs. FILETYPE
comes with several utilities are supported in many
popular programs as well as its own delights. What's
unique about FILETYPE, is not its capability of showing
you so much on-screen but that takes such a
comprehensive, well thought out overall approach to the
analyzing a program and spit out unique informations.
FILETYPE's available at the affordable price $6.00.
FILETYPE is straight forward, easy to learn/use and
responsive. You don't have to impress your dear
friends with this program just give him a copy and
he'll be you're friend forever!

=== General ===

This manual is divided into eleven (11) sections.
They cover the commands for describing, maintaining
data files, and preparing reports from the data in the
files. Because the FILETYPE report request base on a
program this can be used on any existing non-FILETYPE
files, the first sections are devoted to the topic of
how reports are prepared. Little or no knowledge of the
file input command is needed to use the report request.
Users who are new to FILETYPE will need to understand
at least the material in section 5, 7 and 9 of this
manual. All users will find section 7 useful, as it
provides all the command listings. COMMAND switch
allows the system controls different facilities. The
report request serves a dual purpose and is also used
for hacking.

The sections are:

Section 1 - What's FILETYPE and What's NEW?

The Advanced FILETYPE release 1.14N and higher contains
the most recent updated software informations on
software origin tracing and general type identifying
technique available to the world for curious PC users.

Section 2 - Abilities & why use FILETYPE!

FILETYPE offers a chance to explore the world of
Compilers, data types, general purposes and many other
features. FILETYPE stands alone as an innovative
source to describe a program that no other utility's
capable of or equiped.

You probably already know about FILETYPE or heard of
its smartest way to portray your programs. If the
perplexity of working an .EXE file with a hexeditor
make you withdraw then you should think twice and use
FILETYPE. FILETYPE 1.18A has the most recently updated
features, include display general file info, origin
trace, data type categorizing, comment a file, and the
advanced function checks(display all tasks will be
performed by the program). There are also basic
utilities used in FILETYPE supported in other programs.
I have even completely revised the documentation for
easy understand. The new FILETYPE gives you a step by
step analysis with your Microsoft QuickBASIC, C
Compilers as well as Turbo Pascal, Turbo Prolog and
many others. And you get a comprehensive reference
listing of what's actually really going on with your
programs. With a few good reasons here decides for you
why you should use FILETYPE today

1. FT is a tool for analyzing programs, even when
source is unavailable
2. List all the function calls used in the program
3. Calculate XMODEM transfer time for popular rates
4. Trace a program's ORIGIN such as Development
Language and extract compiler brand
5. Tell your friend what his hacking program's written
in and suprise him
6. To be able to join the rank of hackers
7. Categorize any program's data TYPE
8. View and Search a string globally in a file easily
9. Have something better to upload to your BBS
10. Get a honest description and comments about a program
11. Perform basic LINKAGE tests
12. Test a program's integrity
13. Display program's general STATUS
14. Support SHELL, let you use DOS and pop back.
15. Be knowledged with useful and interesting info
16. Have the power to manipulate most programs
17. Introduce you what a program's all about and obtain
non-Trivial informations
19. Distribute to your best friend without royality
20. Allow Text Search with any program
22. Utilize secret services
23. Obtain updates frequently
24. Be proud to be an owner of an awesome program
25. Have you ever downloaded a program with the
extension .ARC but you can't unARC it, then
you should use FILETYPE to analyze its TYPE,
to figure out what's going on! In a sec Volia
it is an executable .EXE file, all you have
to do is rename it and run your program(This
type of problems happens alot, some nerd just
want to upload but don't want to squeeze and
would use the ARC extension but they can't
fool FILETYPE!!!!)
26. Go take a shit and come back with a file cracked
(A better way to say above is `keep your PC busy while
you are away'.)

FILETYPE's capable to do uncommon applications and
perform impractical features that I am feel proud of.
Despite of all of these there are actually practical
usages for FILETYPE. FILETYPE reads KARATEKA.EXE and
give the following

Origin C, Compiled by Lattice C Compiler 2.10

What an answer! Haven't you ever wonder what KARATEKA
by Broderbund was written in?? Do you want to know
what's the best programming language? And which one you
should learn? What Compiler is the best for your needs?
Which brand supports the best graphics, etc. Here is
the answer use FILETYPE on your favorite program and
get the solution.

If you ever wanted to take a crack at your .EXE or .COM
files then FILETYPE is the only utility for you.

Section 3 - Report Preparation

Ease of use is promoted through the brevity of the
request needed to accomplish even complex tasks. Such
as enter this at COMMAND LINE would retrieve the
traditional simplest solution(like in 1.05), A>filetype
gato.exe. For more detailed extraction enter this to
obtain 1.13(and higher) styled info, A>filetype /a
gato.exe. Detailful informations will be given slowly
through out the manual. More COMMAND switches are
available at section 7.

Section 4 - Describing External Files

The report request can be used on data files that are
not maintained by FILETYPE and, hence, are external.
These are existing files which are maintained by, or
extracted from, other systems. An exact description of
these external files is needed, and the required
facilities are detailed in this section.

Section 5 - Preparing Reports(How to extract info)

Reports are prepared in FILETYPE by typing an
imperative English like statement consisting of one or
no COMMAND switch followed by filename with a path
specification at tail an optional '=' will be given for
some COMMAND switches. Put above description in the
simplest form is like this:

filetype /switch d:\filespec =String(or numbers)

COMMAND switche which is not provided explicitly
described by FILETYPE will be ignored or will be
treated as illegal action and take action against
HACKING.

Section 6 - Operating Systems

FILETYPE is used on a variety of different IBM/MS
operating systems. There is virtually no difference
between the use of FILETYPE itself on different
systems, but different enviroments require different
protocols for naming and cataloguing FILETYPE files.

FILETYPE is used most commonly with the following
operating systems:

Operating System
---------------------------
IBM PCDOS 2.0 and higher
Microsoft DOS 2.0 or higher
Other MS Compatible DOS
(Version 3.0 or higher is recommanded)

External Data File

An external (non-FILETYPE) file can be described in a
manner similar to the one used for FILETYPE files. The
description of the data fields are placed in a MASTER
file. The data may reside on the tape or disk. The
correspondence between the name selected for the file
and the name by which the data is stored on the tape or
disk is provided by a DOS FILEDEF command. On DOS if
the data is stored under the same name as it is used by
FILETYPE and the DOS filetype is DATA, e.g., convention
of using the filetype of data is observed, a
bothersome step can be avoided and FILETYPE will always
know under which name and type the referenced external
file is stored on the disk.

Section 7 - COMMAND LINE switches and commands

FILETYPE contains many enviroments, such as for
entering new data, performing record maintenance, etc.
The environment for preparing these wonder features
requires one or non-COMMAND switch then follow by a
filespec.

The specific command which are useful for FILETYPE
tasks are:

SWITCH ACTION
------ ------
/H FileType Online help and this list
/S Use DOS Temporaryly, type EXIT to ret.
/L Retype, or perform on last request.
/Q Officially exit FILETYPE.
/ Abort, Continue & display current info.
///// Abort, display & return to COMMAND line
/D pathspec Same as DOS 'DIR path'
/E filespec Express Reading
/T file =BLK# Text extracting
/A filespec Perform advanced features
/V file =BLK# View a file (BLK#=starting block #)
/F file =STR Search STRing(s) in file

Without the /A operator FILETYPE would perform with
twice the speed.

FUNCTION KEYS ACTION
------------- ------
F1 /Help
F2 /Shell
F3 /Last
F4 /
F8 /////
F9 /D (Current directory only)
F10 /Quit

OTHER KEYS ACTION
---------- ------
Esc Escape, stop(for initial running only)
Ctrl-Break Stop FILETYPE right now.(Ctrl-C)
Ctrl-R Turn Insert on/off toggle


REFERENCE

Section 8 - Compilers & Interpreters

ADA
---
JANUS/ADA Compiler

APL
---
PortaAPL by Portable Software Company
STSC APL*PLUS/SYSTEM
STSC Pocket APL

ASSEMBLER
---------
A86 Assembler
IBM MACRO Assembler
Microsoft MACRO Assembler
Pheonix PASM86 Assembler
Others as derivative of MS Macro Assembler

BASIC
-----
Borland International's Turbo BASIC Compiler
IBM BASICA
IBM BASIC Compiler, BASCOM
Microsoft BASIC Compiler
Microsoft QuickBASIC Compiler
Microsoft Generic BASIC Compiler, MBASIC
Microsoft BASICA/GWBASIC,MBASIC
ZBASIC Interpiler?

C
-
AZTEC C Compiler
Borland's Turbo C Compiler
Computer Innovations C86 C Compiler
Computer Innovations C86 Plus
Datalight C Compiler
Datalight Optimum C Compiler
DeSmet C Compiler
Lattice C Compiler
Microsoft C Compiler

COBOL
-----
MBP COBOL Compiler
Microsoft COBOL Compiler

DBASE
-----
Clipper

FORTRAN
-------
IBM Fortran Compiler, Professional
Lahey Computer Inc. Fortran77 Compiler
Microsoft Fortran Compiler, Fortran77
Ryan McFarland Fortran Compiler

PASCAL
------
Borland's Turbo PASCAL Compiler
Microsoft PASCAL Compiler

PROLOG
------
Borland's TURBO PROLOG Compiler

OTHERS
------
Some other compilers aren't listed.

Above are the briefly described Compilers supported by
the current FILETYPE. Compiler Versions will be
calculated for many compilers & differ their different
link modules too.

Section 9 - Miscellaneous

Part I - Utilities
------------------
EXEPACK - Microsoft Executable program packing utility
COMPEXE - RMFortran COMPRESS executable program utility
SPACEMAKER - Realia's SPACEMAKER, Squeeze any program
CODEVIEW - Microsoft CodeView debugger
LINK - Microsoft Overlay linker
LINK - Similar to above but it is a segment linker
PLINK86 - Phoenix's Overlay Linkage Editor
PLINK - Same as PLINK86
TLINK - Borland's Turbo C Linker
DUPLICATOR - Data conversion process

Part II - Linkage Test
----------------------
/CODEVIEW - Prepare for Microsoft CodeView Utility
/HIGH - Load program in high memory
/EXEPACK - Compress during Linkage
/STACK - Readjust Stack size

PART III - Important Terms
--------------------------
Image bits - An image of your disk data
Group 1 - Most the time Utility programs
Group 2 - Most the time Graphics programs
C-Derivative - Programs are compiled either by a C
compiler or Compiled by a Compiler that was compiled by
a C Compiler. WOW! FILETYPE now traces back to the
very origin of a program. (Microsoft MACRO Assembler
is Compiled by Microsoft C Compiler, everything
produced by MASM maybe consider as a C-derivative!!)

PART IV - TYPE
--------------
Header implies program is executable - This simply
tells you the program is executable but in some case it
is not due to it is an overlay or chain file by the
main program can't be executed directly without passing
the external(COMMON), static variables.

DOS Dependent - Tell you that the program requires MS-
DOS 2.0 or higher and it maybe DOS version dependent.

Reserved for MSDOS - Simply means that operations done
with MSDOS, such as COMMAND line switches are used,
etc.

Not suitable for packing - Programs are not suitable to
be squeezed by EXEPACK, COMPEXE or SPACEMAKER. Due to
alteration of the code stack, CHAIN locations. COMPEXE
and SPACEMAKER would really screw you up but
Microsoft's EXEPACK will screw up not as frequent.
SPACEMAKER can really squeeze!!! COMPEXE is not
recommanded for use partially because it will not check
for /HIGH, if you pack COPYIIPC then you will be sorry.

Memory Allocation, exit COMMAND.COM error - Means
insufficient memory is occuring or returning from DOS
to your program and can't find part of COMMAND.COM
loaded in memory(RE-Loading will be performed
automatically). Also to perform the /SHELL option, your
COMMAND.COM must be present if it can't be found
anywhere "Memory Allocation, exit COMMAND.COM error"
will be printed. If a different DOS version is running
an "Incorrect DOS Version" message will be noted and
return to your control back to FILETYPE instead of DOS.

Program is data type, origin cannot be defined - This
means that your program is a data file, certainly it
may be a text file that can be written by any one of
the word processors or score data for any games, etc.
These type of data files is too broad to be described
thus origin cannot be defined and no reason to be
defined the origin since they are insignificant.

Part V - More Compiler Info

Old BASIC Compilers - The IBM BASCOM 1.0, Microsoft
BASCOM 1.0, and 1.10 or the Microsoft Generic BASIC
Compiler 5.36, etc. These Compilers are released
before 1984.

New BASIC Compilers - The IBM BASCOM 2.0, Microsoft
QuickBASIC Compilers 1.0 thru 3.0. Compilers released
since 1985 or their runtime link module is 5.60 or
higher.

Contemporary MS-BASIC Compilers are refered as MS-BASIC
3.x or higher which are not released yet (7/22/87)

New Compilers produce a product that's using old
techniques and may be recognized as "old", old BASIC
Compiler, etc.

The old Microsoft C Compiler produced end product look
similar to the current version of Lattice C Compiler
produced product. These two compilers may be once a
child of the other one?

Derivative - a product made by the original compilers
product.

Multilinked or Interlinked programs are refered as two
or more different Compiler modules were linked together
to get the best out of each compiler and to produce a
maximum quality product. Microsoft products are known
to do such capable stuffs.

Compiled by old or modified Lattice C Compiler or
linked with a user customized library - simply implies
that the program has been tested with a 99% resemblence
with Lattice C Compiler compiled program, also it was
either compiled by Lattice C or as a derivative of
Lattice C Compiler. For example Clipper is compiled by
Lattice C, the programs produced by Clipper will be
considered as derivatives of Lattice C Compiler. A
derivative answer will be given only on new products
that's not currently documented in FILETYPE.

Part VI - Explaination for miscellaneous

If a statement stated by FILETYPE for a program and you
find it not true or you didn't place those procedures
in your program then you are probably an amateur. For
an example if you wrote a BASIC program & compiled it,
then at the purpose section or the function list
section will display the program uses com ports, etc.
which you didn't implement, however the Microsoft BASIC
Compilers would add the necessary standard features to
your program inorder to make it executable. Hope this
example will untie the knots within your mind when you
get a strange response by FILETYPE.

If a series error has occured when using FILETYPE then
users should quit FT and restart again.

OTHERS

Section 10 - FILETYPE OVERVIEW

Currently Supports:('*' are concentrated topics)

*FILE STATUS (PURPOSE Section)
*FILE FUNCTION (Advanced Function Analysis Section)
FILE COMMAND (Detect commands used in program)
FILE SECURITY (Copy Protection, Data lock, etc.)
*FILE COMMENT (1st stage of development to COMPLEXITY)
FILE COMPLEXITY (Determine the quality of the program)
*FILE NAME
FILE STRUCTURE (See the structure of prog)
FILE ATTRIBUTE
FILE DEFINITION (List the definitions used in prog)
*FILE DESCRIPTION (Additional descriptions)
FILE DIRECTORY (File I/O and directory handling)
FILE INTEGRITY (See if the prog's packed or corrupt?)
FILE MATCHING (Determine if it looks like other prog)

The non-'*' are supported in program and will be
optimized in many later updates.

Section 11 - Updates & Warranty

There is a new update made available frequently to keep
up with the lattest software informations. Thereby I
give no warranty for the information is given. To be
able to receive a lattest copy & become a registered
user please send $15 to the author with your name and
address, a lattest release will be forwarded to you and
a future release will be mailed to you as soon as when
there is a new version. Don't forget to read UPDATE
each time for detailed info not included in this manual.


Sincerely yours,

PaoHsin Pi, 10/24/87.