Some time ago I went looking for an easier way to keep backup of all my Stars! turns by using a batch file. Since I'm Lazy (at least that's my race's name in the Penta game ) I first went to look at the newsgroup so I wouldn't invent the hot water again (or was that the wheel?).

Recently it came up in the "Questions about Stars! AutoHost" part of the forum, so I figured I would post what I found.
The newsgroup post can be found here.

Quote:

Van:Andrew (andrewt@nildram.dot.co.dot.uk.invalid) Onderwerp:Re: New Player Q: Keeping track of a universe Discussies:rec.games.computer.stars Datum:2003-05-09 11:19:48 PST I got fed up with the details of copying my files, I wrote a simple batch file. if "%1" == "" goto end md "%1" for %%e in (xy x3 m3 h3) do copy "gamename.%%e" "%1" :end Right at the beginning of the game I change gamename and the numbers to suit the current game Save this as save.bat into your game directory. Right-click and choose properties. Edit the command line by adding a question mark, so it reads SAVE.BAT ? The question mark means you'll get asked for a parameter when you double-click the batch file. Type in the year number and hit "OK". That number gets substituted in place of %1. The batch file takes care of creating the new directory and copying the files. The result: you build up a folder for each year. The multiple redundant copies of gamename.xy mean it's easy to open up earlier turns to see what the situation was. In a long game you'll want to delete or zip the earliest turns.

But winxp does not let you use the "?" so you don't get prompted for the year.
That's why I only use it for one game, it's the "default" (the first that's get shown, because it was the last you used) for the "Run" command (is it called that way in English win versions?) in the Start menu, like:
"C:\stars\penta\save.bat 2458"
So each time I want to run it I can quickly change the game year (most of the times only the last digit )... Using it for more than one game would require to select the correct line for the other game and that takes as much time as making the backup manually ...

Anyone care to share how they do it or how to improve the method/batch file above?

mch

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[Updated on: Mon, 17 November 2003 01:38]

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[Updated on: Mon, 17 November 2003 03:41]

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Yeah I know how to make that one work (not the email thing). Let me see here.... Batch is my only skill at "programming" So now to incorperate the use of staryear.exe.... Automation here we come!

Now assuming you put "Staryear.exe" into the same directory as this batch file... hmmm.... This isn't going to be enough... To convert the output to a useable command I'll need 1 other program. I'll have to post this... But it's really tiny.. (I could do it just with this other program, but it would only work well upto year 2555 then it would start having problems.) It might be possible to do this with a "for" command, but I don't think "for" can weed out those pesky hard returns. Anyway, here we go:

@echo off

if exist player.bat goto skip

echo Game name?
set /p game=
echo Race number?
set /p race=
echo set game=%game%> player.bat
echo set race=%race% >> player.bat

:skip
call player.bat
echo set year=>!.bat
staryear %game%.m%race% /q >>!.bat
poke !.bat 0x9 0xd
poke !.bat 0xa 0xd
call !.bat

md "%year%"
for %%e in (xy x%race% m%race% h%race%) do copy %game%.%%e "%year%"


:end
del !.bat



There's only 1 problem with this, it takes 2 programs to make work.
You can get "poke.exe" out of this file:
http://www.pirates.retreat.btinternet.co.uk/StarNameChanger. zip
And "staryear.exe" out of this file:
ftp://library.southern.edu/xchange.zip

Copy the batch file I have above to *.bat (* being whatever you want) and then extract Staryear.exe and Poke.exe from the 2 files, put them in the same directory as your batch file and VWALLA! Your all ready to go! It'll read the year, make the directories, all you have to do is say what game and what race.. ONCE! Neat eh? I might also be able to whip up one to do multiple players.. maybe.. or you can just edit it, add a few more lines.. whatever.

[Updated on: Mon, 17 November 2003 15:26]

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All of this sounds easier than doing it manually? Man, I don't get it!

Why can't someone just say...

"Sure dude, there's this nifty little utility you can download from Superduperstarsthingies.com that'll do all of that for ya with a mouse-click; it's only a 69kb file so it's a cinch to download, nothing to set up, and you'll love it."

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awww diddums....
The point is you only have to do it once

Tho I did start thinking about writing a little backup proggie when I read this thread...can't be bothered atm tho.

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Thanks Captain! This works great! I edited the batch file with correct game name and player numbers (team game so backupping the files of all 3 races in the team) and with the creation of the year.bat I now just click the save.bat and it creates a dir with the new year and copies the files all by itself, just like I wanted too!

Really gratefull for your help!!

mch

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Hey I just wrote up 1 last batch file here. It requires Poke.exe but so does all my other stars utilities

Improvements: It's faster than the one I had that used Staryear.exe (which used to hang on me.) It can also calculate the year on it's own accurately! WOOT! All you need to do is copy this text into a file with a .bat at the end, and get poke! from my star namer program at Pirates retreat. Run it, adjust it. Whatever. I've also got one that'll save you time when opening your ally's turn files.. You edit in the password and then just drag drop to load the turn! (I didn't include that one here)

@echo off

if exist zgame.bat goto skip

echo Game name?
set /p game=
echo Race number?
set /p race=
echo set game=%game%> zgame.bat
echo set race=%race% >> zgame.bat

:skip
call zgame.bat
echo set year=>!.bat
::staryear %game%.m%race% /q >>!.bat
poke %game%.m%race% 0xc >>!.bat
poke !.bat 0x9 0xd
poke !.bat 0xa 0xd
call !.bat
set year1=%year%

echo set year=>!.bat
poke %game%.m%race% 0xd >>!.bat
poke !.bat 0x9 0xd
poke !.bat 0xa 0xd
call !.bat
set year2=%year%
set /a year=(year2 *256) +year1

set /a year=year +2400

md "%year%"

for %%e in (xy x%race% m%race% h%race%) do copy %game%.%%e "%year%"

:end
del !.bat


=====================
And as a special bonus! here's one that'll auto detect how many player M files you have and auto back them up for you! (still requires POKE.exe)
=====================


@echo off

if exist zgame.bat goto skip

echo Make sure any races you want backed up are present in the directory.
echo .
echo Game name?
set /p game=
echo set game=%game%> zgame.bat
set num1=1
set num=0

:loop1
if exist %game%.m%num1% set /A num=num +1
if exist %game%.m%num1% echo set race%num%=%num1% >> zgame.bat
if %num1%==16 goto next
set /A num1=num1 +1
goto loop1

:next
echo set num=%num% >> zgame.bat

:skip
call zgame.bat
set race=%race1%
echo set year=>!.bat
poke %game%.m%race% 0xc >>!.bat
poke !.bat 0x9 0xd
poke !.bat 0xa 0xd
call !.bat
set year1=%year%

echo set year=>!.bat
poke %game%.m%race% 0xd >>!.bat
poke !.bat 0x9 0xd
poke !.bat 0xa 0xd
call !.bat
set year2=%year%
set /a year=(year2 *256) +year1

set /a year=year +2400

md "%year%"
copy %game%.xy "%year%"

for %%e in (%race1% %race2% %race3% %race4% %race5% %race6% %race7% %race8% %race9% %race10% %race11% %race12% %race13% %race14% %race15% %race16%) do copy %game%.?%%e "%year%"

copy !trade* %year%

:end
del !.bat

[Updated on: Wed, 17 December 2003 22:06]

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