DOS FAT Conversion Utility

Upgrading from Barr DOS products

For the users of the BARR/RJE DOS program, a conversion utility is available to convert DOS FATs Acronym for File Attribute Table. A collection of rules that define conditions and actions designed to modify header fields as jobs are being received into the Barr spooler. to BARR/SPOOL override tables. The utility can read data that has been stored either in the Barr RJE configuration or as external FATs.

Once the DOS FAT have been converted, you must import it as an override table from the Configuration Utility's Override Table tab.

• Conversion command syntax

• Conversion syntax examples

• Error codes

What do you want to do?

• Import an override table

See also:

• Override Table tab

Conversion command syntax

To convert DOS FATs to BARR/SPOOL’s override tables, enter the following command at the MS-DOS prompt.

Fatcvt [-d:fat-type] [-h] [-v] [-u] infile outfile

Parameters

fat-type – For Barr configuration files, this parameter is ignored because the utility can determine from the configuration file how the FAT is driven. For external FATs, this parameter indicates how the FAT is driven. There are three valid options:

• FORM – Use when the FAT is driven by filename/formname.

• JOB – Use when the FAT is driven by filename/jobname.

• FCB – Use when the FAT is driven by filename/jobname.

infile – The name of the file containing the FAT information to convert. Barr configuration files and external FATs are valid. Executable files are not valid.

outfile – The name of the file to which the converted FAT information will be written.

Switches

-u – Processes the entire input file, even if invalid FAT records were found. By default, the utility will stop after receiving the first invalid FAT record. When this option is used, the utility will continue through the end of the input file and display an error message for all invalid records.

-v – Displays the copyright notice and the utility version number. All other parameters and switches except -h are ignored.

-h – Displays help and usage information. All other parameters and switches are ignored.

Conversion syntax examples

The following examples are provided to show the proper syntax for the utility that converts DOS FATs to BARR/SPOOL override tables.

Example 1

fatcvt barr.cfg barr.snt

Converts the FAT information in the Barr configuration file barr.cfg and writes the converted information to a file named barr.snt. The command will fail if the barr.cfg file is an external FAT because a -d parameter was not provided.

Example 2

fatcvt -d:job barr.fat barr.snt

Converts the FAT information in the external FAT barr.fat and writes the output to the file barr.snt. This command will also work for a Barr configuration file. In this case, the -d switch will be ignored, and the setting found in the configuration file will be used.

Error codes

When the -u parameter is used, the DOS Conversion Utility returns error codes that can be used to identify problems when converting data.