NEW RENAME UTILITY. PC-DOS STYLE
                 by Miguel Vasquez

 
     CP/M's  rename command (REN) is limited by  its 
not  being able to use wild cards ( ?'s and *'s ) in 
the file names.
     Recently  ,  I ran into a program by George  M. 
Gallen  in  either Dr.  Dobb's  or  Microsystems  (I 
cannot  remember which one it was.) that allowed  to 
change  the  extension of a group  of  files.  After 
reading  that  program,  it occurred to me  that  it 
would  not  take too much work to generalize  it  so 
that  one could use wild cards anywhere in the  file 
names.  -At work,  I have an IBM-PC under PC-DOS. In 
this  operating  system,  the rename  command  (also 
called  REN) does allow you to use wild cards in the 
file names.
     The  program XREN.ASM (eXtended REName) is  the 
result of these modifications.  At first , I thought 
that although the program was nice I would not  have 
too much use for it.  But now that I have it, I find 
myself using it more and more .

     The syntax for using XREN mimics that of REN in 
PC-DOS :
           XREN [d:]OldFilename NewFilename

where  the drive specifier (d:) is optional and  the 
file names can use wild cards (?'s and *'s) freely.

examples:   
     XREN  *.DOC  *.TXT   
will  change  all files with the  DOC  extension  to 
having  the  TXT  extension.  The file name  is  not 
changed.

     XREN LIST*.* NLIST??.*
will change all files that start with LIST to NLIST, 
will  not  change the extension and  will  keep  the  
sixth  and  seventh characters in the original  file 
name.

     There  is  one possible pitfall (to  which  PC-
DOS's  REN command is NOT immune) of this generality 
in file renaming rules:

with the command:   REN   DAT*.*  DATA?23.*

if  one of the original file names is like  DAT.TMP, 
the  strict application of the rules for the use  of 
wild cards would produce a renamed name:  

                   DATA 23.TMP.

YES, with a BLANK in the middle of the file name!.
This  is  what  PC-DOS  does.   Thus  producing   an 
inaccessible file.
I  have avoided this in XREN.ASM by adding one  more 
rule:  whenever  a  blank  in the original  name  or 
extension is matched with a wild card (an ?) in  the 
destination,  the  rest of the name or extension  in 
the destination is filled with blanks.

Thus, the previous example will produce:

                 DATA.TMP

as the renamed file. 

For  those who are not very experienced in using the 
CP/M  assembler,  I describe what should be done  to 
produce the executable XREN.COM  file.

1.- Use  the  N  option of  Word-Star  to  type  the 
(program)  file  XREN.ASM EXACTLY as  shown.  BEFORE 
saving your file,  use the command ^QC to go to  the 
end of the file, then save it.

2.- After  returning  to the CP/M prompt,  put  your 
CP/M  system diskette in drive A:  and the  diskette 
with the file XREN.ASM in drive B:. 

3.- Log drive B: Hit ^C and type  B: <return>

4.- Type:  A:ASM  XREN.BBB  <return>
This will produce the following files in the B:drive 
XREN.HEX,  XREN.PRN.  On the screen you will see the 
following messages:

CP/M ASSEMBLER - VER 2.0
03F7
002H USE FACTOR
END OF ASSEMBLY

Anything different from this will probably  indicate 
an error in the file XREN.ASM. Check it carefully.

5.- Type: A:LOAD XREN  <return>
You will see the messages:

FIRST ADDRESS  0100
LAST  ADDRESS  03CC
BYTES READ     02CD
RECORDS WRITTEN  06

All  of this has produced the file XREN.COM in drive 
B: and you are done.

Happy Renaming!.