                 Eric Oulashin's door config file copier
                              Version 1.01
                        Release date: 2011-04-25

                                  by

                             Eric Oulashin
                     Sysop of Digital Distortion BBS
                 BBS internet address: digdist.bbsindex.com
                     Email: eric.oulashin@gmail.com



Contents
========
1. Disclaimer
2. Introduction
3. Installation
4. Program usage
5. Revision History


1. Disclaimer
=============
The only guarantee that I can make about this program is that it will take up
space on your computer.


2. Introduction
===============
This is a program I wrote to help with a frustration of mine: Many BBS door
programs require a separate configuration file for each node of the BBS, and
it can be tedious to manually create each configuration file, and if you
decide to add nodes to your BBS, that work would be multiplied by the number
of doors you have installed.  Most often, the only difference in the
configuration files for each node is the path to the BBS node directory, where
the drop file is located.

This program automates the creation of most of the configuration files for a
door program.  After you create one configuration file, you can run this
program to create the rest of the configuration files for your BBS nodes,
based on the first one.

This is a text-based command-line application.  Knowledge of the command
line will be helpful in using this program.  Native Win32, DOS, and OS/2
(16-bit) versions are included.  The source code is also included, for those
who wish to compile the program for Linux and UNIX variants (or other
operating systems).


3. Installation
===============
To install this program, simply copy the executable to a directory on your
BBS machine.  The following directories included with this archive contain
version for different platforms:
Win32: Contains the Win32 console version
DOS: Contains the DOS version
source: Contains the source code, for compilation in Linux and UNIX variants

To compile the source code on Linux and UNIX variants, a make file is included
along with the (C++) source file.  Note that you will need the GNU compiler
tools for C++ (g++ and make) installed in order to compile this program.  To
compile this program in Linux and UNIX variants, follow these steps:
 1. Go to a command prompt
 2. Change to the source directory included with this archive
 3. Run this command:
    make
After following those steps, if everything goes well, you should have an
executable program called dncc in the source directory.  You can then copy
that program to a directory of your choice.
Having the 'make' utility installed is not an absolute requirement to compile
this program.  You can compile this program directly with g++ with a command
such as this:
g++ -o dncc dncc.cpp


4. Program usage
================
When you run this program, you need to give it 3 parameters, in this order:
- The name of the configuration file to read, which the others will be based
  on
- The base directory name ("path template") for your different BBS node
  directories (i.e., if your BBS node directories are in C:\BBS\NODE1,
  C:\BBS\NODE2, etc., this parameter would be C:\BBS\NODE).
- The total number of nodes that your BBS has

The command syntax for the program is as follows:
dncc <config filename> <node path template> <total number of nodes>

The configuration filename is assumed to have a number in it (i.e.,
NODE1.CFG), and the node path template is assumed to have the node number at
the end (i.e., D:\BBS\NODE1).  Note that if there are spaces in the config
filename or node path template, those command-line options will have to be
enclosed in double-quotes (i.e., "D:\My BBS\node1").  Also, the path template
is case-sensitive (i.e., C:\BBS\NODE1 is different from D:\BBS\node1).  The
case of the path template must match the case of the path in the configuration
file.

When the program runs, it will read the configuration file you specify and
output the configuration files for the rest of the nodes.

As an example, if your BBS has 10 nodes, and your BBS is installed in C:\BBS,
you would first create a NODE1.CFG and then run this program as follows:
dncc NODE1.CFG D:\BBS\NODE 10
This program would read NODE1.CFG and write NODE2.CFG through NODE10.CFG.

Also, you can have this program use any node's configuration file as the
template, not just the first one.  If you use node 2's configuration file, for
example, this program will write configuration files for node 1 and nodes 3
and up (if more than 2 nodes are specified).


5. Revision History
===================
Version  Date         Description
-------  ----         -----------
1.01     2011-04-25   Updated to output an error if the node path template
                      is not found in the source configuration file.
1.0      2011-02-01   First public release