Posted by Ed Kiser on September 02, 2002 at 17:45:00 from 64.12.96.103 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Re: Molly Turner's names posted by Ed Kiser on August 30, 2002 at 05:06:16:
To make sure credit goes where credit is due:
It was not myself who thought to search for the name, "Ella", but
Jeremy Kriewaldt, whose note suggested not only that name, but
also that I use my "search engine" to further persue the subject.
Incidentally, that "engine" is nothing more than the DOS FIND
command that researches a subdirectory containing the ASCII TEXT
files of the many books of Ransome's that I have had the pleasure
of typing in by hand (no scanning...)
I know it is delving into the antiquity to mention DOS, but there
is that facility, a vestige of it still available as a virtual DOS
session under Windows. A rather lovely DOS command was used to
make that search:
FOR %R IN (*.*) DO FIND "Ella" %R >> \ELLA
followed upon completion with:
EDIT \ELLA
If the above is attempted to be executed from a batch file, be
sure to double on the %, making both references %%R. The single
%R notation works only when actually entering that line on
the DOS COMMAND LINE.
The trick here is to have a subdirectory in which "*.*" will
have access to all those text files, one per chapter. Each file
was named according to the convention of BBCHnn.TXT, where "BB"
stands for the book, as "Swallows and Amazons" became "SA", and
so on, through the entire collection. The "CH" is just that; the
"nn" is the two digit chapter number. Thus when FIND pulls a line
from the text, it will identify which file it was found in. The
name of that file will therefore show me what book, and what chapter.
Thank you, Jeremy, for your excellent memory to come up with "Ella".
At least, you gave me something meaningful to hand to FIND for it
to look for.
While we're on it, if any of you come up with some other key word
that you want researched in the above manner, feel free to let me
know, and I'll show you what I come up with. I have not typed in
"Great Northern?", "Peter Duck", and "Missee Lee", so such a
search will not include those works. Multiword phrases, possible, but
do have a limitation because the ENTIRE PHRASE has to all be on
one line; if an END OF LINE breaks the phrase, then the FIND
will not locate that phrase.
Just wondering: Do you remember "FOR"? That "FOR" command in
DOS seems to be some sort of unknown entity to mose users.
Usually when I mention it to someone, there seems to be much
surprise that such a thing even existed. How quickly we
forget the nuances of DOS once we are pushed into the
vagarities of Windows.
Something else I have been wondering about: I see in several
of these notes of this thread where I am referred to as "BIG ED".
No particular objection here, just wondered how that moniker
managed to pick up that particular adjective. Actually, it
is probably more correct that I would care for it to be, as
overweight does seem to be a personal problem, very much so,
as I'm sure it was one of the major contributing factors leading
me to my medical emergency back last Spring when I had to undergo
the quadruple heart bypass operation.
To somewhat misquote the Bard...
What's in a name? A rose by any other name is still a thornbush.
Ed - in South Florida