MTS Make Them QuickSort Member
of the

(c) 1989 Robert W.van Hoeven Badhoevedorp
Pascal
Release : 4.01 Programmers
Rel.Date: 23th June 1989 Collective


MTQ.EXE



Lines starting with '|' are
changes to TSO 3.02 !!

B
Address: Robert W. van Hoeven P + P
PO. Box 131 C
1170 AC Badhoevedorp
Nederland / Holland



Preface

Please notice the following:

- MTQ is a ShareWare product in every right way;
- This means the software confirms to 'WYSIWYG' (What You See Is What
You Get);
- You are asked to register the program by sending me a postcard or
letter to the address above. Most people who have (or use) a PC, have
the money for 1 stamp and some paper or postcard. I am very pleased

with it, and if you have some questions concerning the program, I will
try to answer them;
- The author can not be made responsible for damage of any kind, as a
direct or indirect result of using the supplied software !


History


Everyone knows that DOS's SORT is very, very slow. There are several
packages (public-domain/shareware) on the marked. This program adds
another one to the list, but this one is free.

MTQ is the former TSO. TSO had to be registered (no one did) to do
the work. The new version (named MTQ for Make Them QuickSorted) adds
another program in the 'Make Them' series and like its brothers and
sisters, the usage is free, altough you have to send me a postcard
when you use the program on a frequent base.

MTQ is an intelligent (?) shell around Turbo Power's MSort
routine, as found in the B-Tree Filer package.
MTQ add's a number of features to the power of this sort routine:


- You can sort on keys;
- You can replace SORT with MTQ

In its most simple version, MTQ can replace the normal SORT on your
machine, but the major benefit of this program is to sort files
bigger than 64K. The only restriction to the length of the sorted
file is the number of bytes free on the current drive.

MTQ is a text-sort. I am working on a newer release with some options
for sorting non-text files but for now I keep them in store.


Installation

You can place MTQ.EXE (optional renamed to SORT.EXE) in one of
the directories in your path. When yu rename MTQ to SORT, please
keep in mind to remove or rename the old SORT.


Usage

MTQ is simple to use. The syntax for running MTQ is:

MTQ {{<}{infile}} {{>}{outfile}} {switches} {sortkey ... sortkey}

infile : Infile is the input text-file that has to be
sorted. If you do not specify an input-file,
the console is used for input;

outfile : Outfile is the output file that is sorted.
If you do not specify an output-file, the screen
is used for output;

You can use redirection, piping or filenames mixed or all the same.
The following combinations are allowed:


MTQ test1 test2 file to file
MTQ MTQ test1 >test2 file to redirected
MTQ test2 ridirected to redirected
MTQ test1 test1 file internal sort
MTQ test1 redirected internal sort
MTQ test1 file to screen
MTQ >test2 console to redirected
MTQ console to screen

The combination MTQ test2, where test2 has to be the output-file, is
NOT allowed. You can specify MTQ CON test2 or better MTQ >test2.

The first NOT-switch/NOT-sortkey is seen as the input-file, the
second as the output file.

switches : /? : MTQ gives you help on the syntax;

/C : Sort without looking at the case. 'Input'
is the same as 'INPUT' or 'InPuT';

/Txxxx : MTQ creates some temporary files. You can
instruct MTQ to change the first 5 letters
of this file to something of your own.

/I : /I will give you info on the sort. This comes
in handy with large text files. You will get
information about the number of bytes on disk
that are needed, the number of EMS pages and
so on. /I does NOT result in the actual sort.
It is needed to read the entire input-file,
so this option is not so handy when you have
to key in the input from the console;

/R : /R is compatible with SORT's /R switch. When
you supply /R the file is sorted in descending
order;

/E : When you specify /E, you instruct MTQ NOT to use
any EMS available. If you don't have EMS, forget
about /E;


sortkey : You can specify up to 25 sort-keys. The have the following
syntax:

[direction][colomn]:[length]

[direction] can by + (ascending) or - (descending) and
[column] and [length] have to be num. values. The max.
length of a record can be up to 255 bytes (a normal
text-file value). You can not overlap keys, neither
specify a key:length combination that goes beyond the
255th position of the record. You CAN specify a key
that lies beyond the length of some records.


Limits

MTQ knows only one limit and that is the maximum length of each
record. A record must terminate with a LF+CR and can be up to 255
bytes in length.


Errorlevels

MTQ will report a non-zero errorlevel when something is wrong.
Only the /I will always report 0.

0 : Everything ok or info requested on a valid file
8 : You asked for help
16: Something very wrong


Version history


3.02 : Last TSO version
4.01 : Added MSort routines

Copyright, Trademarks


|MTS is written in Turbo Pascal 5.0, with help of the Turbo Debugger 1.0
|and makes extensive use of Turbo Professional 5.01 and B-Tree Filer 1.0.

Turbo Pascal is a trademark of Borland International
Turbo Debugger is a trademark of Borland International
Turbo Professional is a trademark of TurboPower Inc.
B-Tree Filer is a trademark of TurboPower Inc.
MSort is a trademark of TurboPower Inc.

Sorry for my usage of the English language, it's not my native language
so this can happen.

If you have suggestions, additions or other comments, you can leave a
message, addressed to me (Rob Van.hoeven) at QuickBBS Support Europe
(SysOp Reinier de Groot) 2:2/100 (2:500/3)

NOTE: Remember to put a point between Van and Hoeven when sending
Net-Mail messages !!!!!!