Manual page for bastext

BASTEXT (1)

NAME

SYNOPSIS

bastext -o [-t] [-2|-3|-5|-7|-1] filename(s)

bastext -h

DESCRIPTION

The following Commodore BASIC versions and extensions are supported by bastext:

Commodore BASIC 2.0

Commodore BASIC 7.0

Software Unlimited's Graphics52 for Commodore 64

Riska BV's The Final Cartridge III for Commodore 64

Rick Simon's BASIC 7.1 for Commodore 128

bastext tries to autodetect the Commodore BASIC dialect used in the file it is processing. At the moment, this is done by checking the starting address of the file. These starting addresses are recognized, and interpreted (addresses written in hexadecimal):

0401

VIC-20 BASIC 2.0 or Commodore 64 Graphics52 BASIC extension. Since Graphics52 is the super-set, the file will be interpreted as such.

0801

Commodore 64 BASIC 2.0 or Commodore 64 The Final Cartridge III BASIC extension. Since TFC3 is the super-set, the file will be interpreted as such.

132D

Commodore 128 BASIC 7.1 extension by Rick Simon. This file is a combined file, with both the BASIC 7.1 extension binary, and the BASIC source in one file (saved with BASIC 7.1's ESAVE command). The preamble will be ignored, and the file will be interpreted as BASIC 7.1.

1C01

Commodore 128 BASIC 7.0 or Commodore 128 BASIC 7.1 extension by Rick Simon. Since BASIC 7.1 is the super-set, the file will be interpreted as such.

4001

Commodore 128 BASIC 7.0 saved with graphics mode enabled.

The text files created by this program are supposed to be compatible with those of tok64, meaning that the files it creates should be possible to interpret with this one, and the files this program creates should be possible to interpret with it. However, an extra header, in front of tok64's start tok64 header is added, start bastext, which contains the starting address of the original binary file. This is to make the autodetection possible for the text-to-binary direction. The header is not included when the program starts at 0801 (see also BUGS) or 1C01. For Commodore 128 BASIC programs, the header is changed to start tok128, since tok64 only supports C64 programs, this will make it skip those programs.

When bastext interprets text representations of files back into binary mode, it will use the start address as saved in the start bastext header, to autodetect the file format in the same way as in binary-to-text. If no such header exists (e.g if the file was created with tok64), bastext will assume that the program's start address is 0801 (standard for Commodore 64), and that it should interpret it as Commodore 128 BASIC 7.0, as this is a super-set of BASIC 2.0. This should make bastext able to interpret most text files without any big problems. If autodetection in this mode does not work, use one of the "force" parameters described below.

OPTIONS

-i

Set input mode (converting from binary Commodore tokenized BASIC to text).

-o

Set output mode (converting from text to binary Commodore tokenized BASIC).

-h

Shows a brief help screen, with an overview of the available options.

GENERAL MODIFIERS

These general modifiers (works in both input and output modes) are available:

-t

Enable T64 (Commodore 64 emulator tape archive) mode. When in input mode, this means that instead of the specified file names being binary Commodore BASIC files, they are T64 archives. When in output mode, this means that instead of writing the binary Commodore BASIC files to files in the current directory, they will be written to a T64 archive named bastext.t64 in the current directory. If the archive already exists, it will be appended to. The default directory size for the bastext.t64 file is 30 entries. If you try to add more files to it, the program will abort with an error message. The default directory size is controlled in the t64.h file.

INPUT MODE MODIFIERS

These modifiers are available only when in input mode:

-a

Convert all input files, not only those that have a "recognized" starting address.

-s

Maintain strict compatibility with tok64. This means that bastext's "extended" escape codes for charactes 92 (British pound), 95 (left arrow), 160-192 (shift space to shift asterisk), 219-221 (shift plus, commodore minus and shift minus), and 223 (commodore asterisk), will be printed as three-digit numeric escape codes, not as textual escapes. The "strict" mode will not, however, undo the problems with tok64's "uppercase in quoted strings"-bug (see under BUGS).

-d filename

Selects the filename to write the output to. If the filename is not given, or is given as "-", the listings will be output on the standard output device (normally the console).

OUTPUT MODE MODIFIERS

These modifiers are available only when in output mode:

-2

Force Commodore BASIC 2.0 interpretation of all programs.

-3

Force Commodore 64 The Final Cartridge III BASIC extension interpretation of all programs. (See also BUGS).

-5

Force Commodore 64 Graphics52 BASIC extension interpretation of all programs.

-7

Force Commodore 128 BASIC 7.0 interpretation of all programs.

-1

Force Commodore 128 BASIC 7.1 extension interpretation of all programs.

Please note that the MS-DOS and OS/2 versions (EMX compiled) uses / (slash) as parameter character.

EXAMPLES

bastext -i sample.prg

Converts sample.prg to text, and displays it on the standard output.

bastext -i -s -d programs.txt *.prg

Converts all Commodore BASIC binary files with a .prg extension to text, writing it to programs.txt in the current directory, while maintaining tok64 compatibility.

bastext -it *.t64 | more

Converts all files in all T64 archives (with filename suffix .t64) in the current directory into listings, displaying them one page at a time.

bastext -o7 programs.txt

Converts all programs in the programs.txt text file into Commodore BASIC 7.0 programs.

SEE ALSO

http://ip64.home.ml.org/

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pcgeek/proj64.htm

FILES

DISTRIBUTED FILES

COPYING

The GNU Public License.

Makefile

File used by make(1) to automate compilation.

Makefile.os2

Makefile for DOS/OS2 version (using EMX).

bastext.1

Source code for manual page/documentation.

bastext.doc

Manual page/documentation.

dtokeniz.c

Routines for detokenization.

inmode.c

Routines used for the input mode.

inmode.h

Header file for inmode.c.

main.c

Start-up routines.

outmode.c

Routines used for the output mode.

outmode.h

Header file for outmode.c.

select.c

Routines for BASIC dialect autodetection.

select.h

Header file for select.c.

t64.c

Routines used with T64 files.

t64.h

Header file for t64.c, including definition of T64 file format.

tidy.c

Utility program used to create bastext.doc.

tokenize.c

Routines for tokenization.

tokenize.h

Header file for tokenize.c and dtokeniz.c.

tokens.c

Tokens and PETSCII tables.

tokens.h

Header file for tokens.c.

version.h

Header file contaning program name and version.

These binary files comes with the bastext distribution:

linux/bastext.i86

Binary version for Linux/i86.

linux/bastext.sun

Binary version for Linux/Sparc.

sun/bastext.sun

Binary version for SunOS/Sparc.

dos/bastext.exe

Binary version for DOS and OS/2 (EMX). Requires the EMX/RSX runtime libraries.

BUGS

tok64 seems to parse uppercase characters in quoted strings incorrectly. It converts them into characters in the range of 97-122, whereas a Commodore computer (and bastext) usually uses the "shadow" range of 193-208. This will not look any different when used on a Commodore computer, but it will make the binaries differ, and could make a difference if the program needs the correct PETSCII values. The problem will appear when you convert the program in one direction with bastext and in the other with tok64, not when using the same program in both directions.

bastext does not yet support the "bare" format that tok64 normally outputs (without the start tok64 header).

VERSION INFORMATION

AUTHOR

A Softwolves Software (tm) Release in 1998.

This program is released under the GNU Public License