1<html><head> 2 <title>Metakit sample code - Struct</title> 3</head><body bgcolor=white> 4 5<font face=Helvetica size=3> 6 7<!--begin--> 8<h2><img src="e4app.gif" alt="App Icon" border=0 align=left> 9Metakit sample code - Struct</h2><br clear=left> 10 11<p>This application highlights some low-level aspects of the Metakit library. 12</p> 13 14<p><b>What it does</b>: Struct is a little utility which displays the data 15structure of any Metakit datafile on standard output. The output uses a 16text-mode graph to display the data structure, which can be useful to determine 17what information is stored in a specific Metakit datafile. </p> 18 19<p><b>What it illustrates</b>: For demonstration purposes, Struct has been 20compiled as a real-mode small-model MS-DOS utility program. It shows how you can extract 21structural information from a Metakit datafile without knowing anything 22about it. The sample code includes a general "StructureMap" class 23to generate text-based graphs. The size of the STRUCT.EXE program demonstrates 24how small a fully self-contained application using Metakit can be. </p> 25 26<p>Note that although Struct must respect the very severe 64 K memory limit imposed 27by small-model MS-DOS, you can still use this program to examine the structure of files 28of any reasonable size. The reason for this is that Metakit implements on-demand loading, 29and that Struct never accesses the actual data itself.</p> 30 31<p><b>How to use it</b>: To examine the structure of a datafile, simply 32run STRUCT.EXE from the MS-DOS prompt with the filename as argument. There 33are a few command-line options to control the output format, these are 34listed when you start Struct without a filename. They are: </p> 35 36<ul> 37<dl> 38 <dt><b>-d</b> </dt> <dd>Show a linear description instead of the default tree. </dd> 39 <dt><b>-t</b> </dt> <dd>Show a linear description of the structure, omitting the property names.</dd> 40 <dt><b>-c </b></dt> <dd>Show column structure instead of the deafult tree structure (advanced).</dd> 41</dl> 42</ul> 43 44<p>You can redirect the output to file, just as with any other MS-DOS program. 45</p> 46 47<p><b>Known problems</b>: None. </p> 48 49<p><b>Files in EXAMPLES\STRUCT</b>: </p> 50 51<p>STRUCT.CPP - Struct main program 52<br>STRUCT.MAK - MSVC 1.52 project makefile </p> 53<!--end--> 54 55<center><p><hr size=1> 56|| 57 <a href="index.html" target="_top">Roadmap</a> 58 <a href="classes.html">Class Index</a> 59 <a href="samples.html">Sample Index</a> 60 || 61 <a href="intro.html">Introduction</a> 62 <a href="tips.html">Tips and Tricks</a> 63 || 64 65</center> 66</font> 67 68</body></html> 69
