Subj : smbutil
To   : Finnigann
From : Digital Man
Date : Tue Aug 30 2005 02:50 pm

  Re: smbutil
  By: Finnigann to digital man on Tue Aug 30 2005 07:02 pm

 > I was noodleing around the ol' SBBS tree and started reading the SBL folder.
 > was reading that I could send a message via QWK to SBL and update the listin
 > for my BBS following a specific format.
 > 
 > I post BBS ads with SMBUTIL and reading this:
 > 
 > 
 >  o  Post a message on the Synchronet Data echo (via DOVE-Net or the
 >     SYNCDATA echo on FidoNet backbone) in the following format:
 > 
 > 
 > I decided to see if I couldn't automate the updating of BNB with a timed eve
 > that would send a message to SBL about once a month.

If your BBS is in your SBL database (run the door and check), then your
SBL2SMB timed-event should already be doing this for you.

 > So I start reading the doc, help and online files about it.
 > 
 > It slowly occours to me that I am not reading the same info (online help v
 > program generated help).

The docs haven't been updated.

 > My copy has a creation date of:
 > 
 > Friday, December 31, 2004, 4:58:58 AM

That's the latest released version.

 > Anyway the command line I use (in a batch file) to create the BBS ads is:
 > 
 > smbutil -i -tAll -fFinnigann -sBBS_Ad ic:\sbbs\xtrn\bbs_ad\BBS_AD-M.asc
 > C:\sbbs\data\subs\dove-ads.shd
 > 
 > However this commadn line seems to fail:
 > smbutil -i -tSBL -fFinnigann -sBits-N-Bytes BBS iC:\SBBS\XTRN\BBS_AD\sbl.txt
 > C:\SBBS\DATA\subs\syncdata.shd

For multi-word arguments (e.g. arguments with *spaces* in them), like
"Bits-N-Bytes BBS", you must include the entire option/argument pair in quotes.
Example:

smbutil -i -tSBL -fFinnigann "-sBits-N-Bytes BBS" iC:\SBBS\XTRN\BBS_AD\sbl.txt

 > I've seen the ads so I know it works.
 > 
 > First off, Do I have the version I _Should_ have?

Yes.

 > what's the diff (if any)?

The version documented in the HTML is old.

 > Can sync varibles be used in this command line ie %system.name%  %j

If smbutil is run from Synchronet (as event perhaps), then yes.

 > Can you use SMBUTIL in some ways and annotate the command line(s)? Many time
 > can learn better/faster from examples over discriptions.

I think your example works well. :-)

                                                  digital man

Snapple "Real Fact" #168:
One brow wrinkle is the result of 200,000 frowns. 

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