Foxidrive
Your frustration is understandable.
This post got my attention because the op seem to be introducing new parameters into the problem, as if this were a chat room or classroom discussion and not a form.
Whenever anyone post a problem in this section, it needs to be clearly stated. often a clear, concise statement of power problem. i'll be solved is the key to providing a quick and accurate solution.
Sometimes it helps if the poster will outline his problem in a pseudo-language that is close to the way we naturally speak.
Something like this. perhaps.
Open up some kind of file lists of a bunch of files that need to be processed.
Begin the outer loop of the file list.
Open up some kind of file from the next item in the list
Open up some kind of file for the output of an input file.
Read in one line from the input file.
Examine the line to find the first item we want and send it to the output file
Do the same for the next item.
And again from the next item.
Bump up to the input line.
If at the end of the file close both files.
Bump up to the next file in the list.
If we get to the end of the list, quit the job.
Otherwise repeat.
Of course, that is not usable code, but it does describe the idea of having a list of files and reading input from each file and doing a process and sending it to an output. the type of file reading that you could do in dos is called stream editing. there is no provision in dos for reading an entire column of text from a file that is organized into columns. so you just have to do it line by line.
This is given only asset suggestion. it is much better to have a verbose description in the first post rather than going on on and adding more information to the problem on-the-fly.
Well, that's what i think. if anybody knows what better way to solve problems, please speak up and say something.
