ALBERT

Description: The LOOK program was developed to permit a user to examine a text file in a psuedo-random access manner. Many engineering and scientific programs generate large amounts of printed output. Often this output needs to be examined in only a few places. On mini-computers (like the DEC VAX) high-speed printers are usually at a premium. One alternative is to save the output in a text file and examine it with a text editor. The slowness of a text editor, the possibility of inadvertently changing the output, and other factors make this an unsatisfactory solution. The LOOK program provides the user with a means of rapidly examining the contents of an ASCII text file. LOOK's basis of operation is to open the text file for input only and then access it in a block-wise fashion. LOOK handles the text formatting and displays the text lines on the screen. The user can move forward or backward in the file by a given number of lines or blocks. LOOK also provides the ability to "scroll" the text at various speeds in the forward or backward directions. The user can perform a search for a string (or a combination of up to 10 strings) in a forward or backward direction. Also, user selected portions of text may be extracted and submitted to print or placed in a file. Additional features available to the LOOK user include: cancellation of an operation with a keystroke, user definable keys, switching mode of operation (e.g. 80/132 column), on-line help facility, trapping broadcast messages, and the ability to spawn a sub-process to carry out DCL functions without leaving LOOK. The LOOK program is written in FORTRAN 77 and MACRO ASSEMBLER for interactive execution and has been implemented on a DEC VAX computer using VAX/VMS with a central memory requirement of approximately 430K of 8 bit bytes. LOOK operation is terminal independent but will take advantage of the features of the DEC VT100 terminal if available. LOOK was developed in 1983.