Date: Tue, 25 Jan 94 21:04:46 EST
From: David Lane <lane@watsun.cc.columbia.edu>
Subject: File converters

I have uploaded a number of files to watsun in my home dir under
jan25. The suffixes are:

	.c	C language source code
	.pm	VOS executable in stream format
	.cm	VOS command macro
	.vos	My hexified format
	.boo	BOO format

The files are:

	ckbunb	The un-BOOer from the C-Kermit distribution
	ckbmkb  The BOO-er that goes with it
	cklcvt  converter from pm stream to pm fixed
	ckltxt  Hexifier for the format I made up
	cklxtr  Un-hexifier that goes with it

The format I came up with is almost only hex-ifying, except that if
the line is all 0000...000, count it. as you count up and get to
something that isn't nulls, output that as Znn where nn is the hex
number of null lines. Also, don't split an output record boundary
within a Z record. A line is 32 bytes, or 64 hex digits.  It works,
but it takes several minutes to use the command macro un-hexifier on
the cklxtr.vos file, but the cklxtr.pm will run it in just a second or
two. These really aren't "distributable quality" yet, but they do give
us a basis for looking at file formats and converters.  The hex format
only processes program modules correctly, not any of the other file
types. 
