ReadMe file for Command Line Utilities by Ron Charlton, release 31

2021-01-16

History

Release 31 (2021-01-16): New program crs shows whether files contain carriage returns (CR), line feeds (LF), CRLF and/or LFCR.
Some other utilities have bug fixes and minor improvements.

Release 30: filedate now correctly displays access and modify times; they were swapped before.
cnl allows using option -p/-preserve-dates without using option -i/--in-place.

Release 29: charFreq now sorts its output by descending character frequency.
Some other utilities have bug fixes and minor improvements.

Release 28: Which doesn't crash with "which \echo".
Xdebt has updated US total public debt and population figures.
Some other utilities have minor bug fixes.

Release 27: Entab and detab now allow processing multiple files into a directory of your specification, as well as processing files in-place.
Hexdump will now use environment variable PAGER to display its results if it is set.

Release 26: convertNewlines is replaced with cnl. cnl works like convertNewlines but also will process matching files in sub-directories if requested.
Programs wc, locc and sha3sum have their -r/--recursive options changed to -s/--subdirs because the word recursive describes a programming technique instead of what the option does. I'm sorry for any confusion this change may cause.
Some other utilities have bug fixes and minor improvements.

Release 25: Added uniq utility to remove duplicate lines from input.

Release 24: sha3sum now has option -r to recursively visit sub-directories.

Release 23: locc now processes very old Macintosh files (with CR line endings) correctly.

Release 22: wc now has a -r option to recurse into subdirectories. It also defaults to adding thousands separators in the counts (they may be turned off with option -n).

Release 21: locc now has a -r option to recurse into subdirectories. It also adds thousands separators in the counts (they may be turned off with option -n). locc will count lines of Go and C++ source code as well as C source code.

Release 20: Added locc to show a count of non-comment, non-whitespace lines of C source code.

Release 19: Added genfile to generate a file of specified size, with a repeated phrase, 'A' characters, or cryptographically generated pseudorandom bytes.

Release 18: Added PhoneWord to make words from a telephone number (x64 only).

Release 17: Rename HashTimeAndClock as HashTime to better reflect what it does.

Release 16: Build bitCounter correctly for Win32/x86 machines.

Release 15: Changed my email address in -v/--version info in all programs.

Release 14: Fixed detab: It mishandled tab characters in some cases.

Release 13: Fixed a hexdump newline error when writing to an output file.

Release 12: Added program Xdebt.

Release 11: Several programs were crashing due to a programming error in one source file.

Release 10, xargs will terminate its child process when it (xargs) is signalled to close (e.g., Ctrl+C). Source code for xargs is included in sub-directory xargs_source.

How To Use These Programs

The two sub-directories — Win32 (for 32-bit Windows) and x64 (for 64-bit Windows) — contain 38 identical programs, all described below. These are native Win32 and x64 Windows programs and require no support files to run. Directory x64 contains one additional program (PhoneWord).

To install these programs: Copy the files from the appropriate Win32 or x64 directory to a directory that is in your computer's executable search path (see "echo %PATH%" [with no quotes]).

These programs accept "-h" or "--help" as requests for help on how to use them. For example, type commconv -h at the command prompt. Program xargs is documented in xargs.html in this directory, as well as with "-h/--help".

See COPYING.txt in this directory for program licenses. Also see GNUCOPYING.txt in this directory for the GNU GPL, and COPYING.LIB.txt for regcomp(), regexec() and regerror() licenses.

Programs In The Win32 And x64 Directories

• A1c — Hemoglobin A1c to blood glucose mg/dl and mmol/mol converter.
• beep — Beep at a specified frequency through the default sound device (usually a sound card).
• bitCounter — Count the zero bits and one bits in a file and/or redirected standard input.
• case — Filter to set all letters to lower [upper|swap] case.
• charFreq — Count the various characters in the input, and output a list of character frequencies sorted by descending frequency of occurrence.
• cnl — (was convertNewlines) Universal conversion of end-of-lines among Windows (CRLF), Linux (LF) and old Mac (CR) formats. See also Ron Charlton's graphical user interface (GUI) program EOL.
• crs — show whether files or standard input contain CRs, LFs, CRLFs and/or LFCRs. crs has a -s/--subdirs option to process matching files in subdirectories.
• commconv — Change C++/C99 comments to C89 comments. [// -> /* */]
• copyFile — Copy a file to another name.
• CutMiddleBytes — Cut the middle from the input and send the ends to the output. Also will send just the middle to the output if requested.
• detab — Replace tab characters with runs of space characters.
• emptyBlankLines — Convert lines containing only blanks to empty lines in files.
  Recommmendation: use this command — C:\>mklink ebl.exe emptyBlankLines.exe
• entab — Replace runs of space characters with tab characters.
• eq — Convert among several numeric bases and ASCII.
• escape_html — Change & < > " to character entities (&amp; etc).
• EvolvoType — Evolve a phrase by keeping random, correct characters. This demonstrates how evolution works quickly by retaining good qualities.
• file2Carray — Read binary data from a file (or redirected stdin) and write an equivalent C char array to a file (or stdout).
• filedate — Show the create, access and modify dates and times of files to millisecond precision (not necessarily accuracy).
• genfile — Generate a file of specified size filled either with 'A' characters or with high-quality pseudorandom bytes generated with AES in CTR mode, or a repeated phrase. The phrase can include escaped characters.
• hashTime — Write 64-bit, unsigned, pseudorandom numbers from hashing the system Performance Counter and UTC system time.
• hexdump — Show input (file or stdin) in hexadecimal and ASCII.
• HexToRawBytes — Read ASCII hexadecimal digits from the input and write raw binary to the output.
• letterFreq — Count the letters in the input and show a sorted list of letter frequencies.
• locc — Lines Of C Code: Count the lines of C, C++ or Go source code in files or standard input. locc ignores comments and whitespace-only lines to give an accurate count for lines of non-comment C, C++ or Go source code. locc has -s/--subdirs options that will provide counts for files in subdirectories. It now adds thousands separators to line counts; this behavior can be turned off with option -n/--no-separator. See "locc -h" for help.
• middle — Extract lines from the middle of a text file.
• PhoneWord — (available for x64 only) Generate English words from a telephone number of 2 to 10 digits.
• reverseFile — Reverse the line order from text input and write the lines to the output.
• RonTime — Time a command to microsecond accuracy, up to about 28 years, while providing file wild-card globbing to that command.
• sha3sum — Show SHA-3 digests for files named on the command line. Digests of 224, 256, 384 and 512 bits are supported.
• sleepSeconds — Sleep (pause) for a number of seconds. sleepSeconds' range is 1 microsecond to 2,147,483,647.999 seconds (about 68 years).
• text2Cstring — Read text from a file or stdin, and write an equivalent C string to an output file or standard output. text2Cstring relies on the C compiler concatenating C string literals separated by only whitespace.
• unescape_html — Restore & < > " from character entities in HTML code.
• uniq — Remove duplicate (or at your option, unique) lines from a sorted file or sorted standard input.
• unfold — Unfold blocks of text, separated by blank lines, into single lines.
• unsort — Shuffle the input lines and write to the output.
• wc — Line/word/character counts in files or standard input. Provide counts for files in subdirectories if so requested.
• which — Find the path(s) to the executable file(s) for a command.
• wraptext — Break long lines at a space.
• xargs — Execute a command with arguments taken from standard input. See xargs.html for details.
• Xdebt — Show the total US public debt each second and the per capita debt. The amount shown is based on the 2020-08-06 figures for debt, population, and the rates of change for both.

Please report any program misbehavior to the following email address. Please include any output from the misbehaving program when the misbehavior occurred.

E-mail: Ron Charlton <Ron @ RonCharlton.org>

Document last revised: 2021-01-16

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