Utility: makefhx

Syntax

makefhx inputfile {outputfile}

Description

Create a text index binary file from a text input file.

Parameters

• inputfile
  The text file to be indexed.

• outputfile
  The name of the binary index file to be created from inputfile. If omitted, the filename of inputfile is used with a change of extension to .fhx.

Switches

None

Notes

Index files are used by Fire to access paragraphs from within a text file without having to search the file.

Lines with text in column 1 of inputfile are interpreted as paragraph keys. Lines with white-space in column 1 are interpreted as paragraph text. A paragraph comprises all paragraph text between two consecutive keys.

An example input file, perhaps named myfile.dat:

names
    Arnold Schwarzenegger
    Vera Caslavska
    Mike Brierley
    Pandit Nehru
desc
    Comedian
    Gymnast
    Philosopher
    Statesman

Index files are used by the Fire commands type and print to access a single paragraph from a file, e.g. to type only the paragraph corresponding to a key name in a file myfile.dat, the command would be:

type myfile.dat, -key=’names’

The dates of the text file and its companion index file are checked by Fire at access time and a warning is given if the text file has changed since the last creation of the index file. This checks against accessing editing the source file without updating the index file.

Examples

Creates myfile.fhx from myfile.dat.

makefhx myfile.dat

See Also