Appendix A: Softfile Utilities

1. The Compress command eliminates wasted space from a database. It was discussed in "Compressing the Database" in Part 2. The command asks the maximum number of records for this database; the proper answer is 0, except in rare circumstances discussed in that section.

2. The Index command recreates all the indexes for a database. Softfile uses several index files in addition to the main data file. It is possible that a computer crash at a particularly bad moment could corrupt the indexes. Or, a disk failure could make an index file unreadable. You can regenerate all the index files with this command. The only file that Softfile absolutely requires is the one which ends in ".dat", usually "soft.dat".

   The Index command asks if you want a large dictionary. Softfile stores all the words in your database, except those in the "ignore" file, in a dictionary. A large dictionary takes considerably more disk space to store, but works faster, than a small dictionary. The typical answer, however, is No, to create a small dictionary. The New command always creates a small dictionary for a new database.

   You should not run Softfile while the index program is still running. If you do, you might interfere with the programs which index the data.

3. The List command creates a file which shows the record number, date of creation, date and time of last modification, and first line of every record in the database. It uses the same output options record as Softfile's Output, ..., Disk command to specify the name of the file. See the "Printing" section in Part 2 for details.

4. The New command was discussed in "Setting Up a Database". It creates a new Softfile database named "soft". It also creates a directory named "soft" to hold the files.

5. The Reset command sets the number of users of the database to zero. This is necessary if the computer "crashes" (stops working) while you are in Softfile. If you then try to run Softfile again, you will get a message which says "File in use by N other users, cannot edit". The number N is replaced by an actual number. The Reset command quickly fixes this problem. However, you may need to use the Index command also.

6. The Words command creates a list of all the words in the dictionary. For each word, the list shows how many records in the Softfile database contain that word. The most frequently-used words appear first. Note that words in the "ignore" list are not shown. The Words command always puts the word list in file "soft.out".

7. Finally, the Quit command gets you out of the Utilities program.