Roman inscription
INSCRIPT searches Roman inscriptions stored in ‘*.TXT’ files in sub-folders from the Frankfurt University database (www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~clauss/index-e.html). First, copy the Frankfurt folders to your own computer (using e.g. a multiple file copier such as Softbyte’s
‘Black Widow’) and store them in their own folder. Let’s call this folder ‘INSCHRIFTEN’, as Frankfurt does. A catalogue of inscription databases is given here.
You will now have a series of folders something like this:
‘C:\INSCHRIFTEN\abc\xyz.TXT’ where ‘abc’ represents (e.g.) AE1957, CIL02 etc., and ‘xyz’ represents any of the text files within ‘abc’. It does not matter how many sub-folders you have of type ‘abc’, nor how many files lie within them. Requirements: INSCRIPT requires at least 1 Mbyte of free memory to function properly.
Method
- INSCRIPT starts by searching all the files and files-within-sub-folders lying within
- INSCHRIFTEN. A maximum of 10 nested folders-within-folders beneath
- INSCHRIFTEN will be searched. It creates a file called ‘DIR4.TXT’ to store all the files it finds within all these sub-folders. These files will have been sorted into alphabetical order.
The user now sets search items that INSCRIPT will use to search these files. Place SPACES around the word if you wish to search for full words, not parts of words (but note that a phrase such as [space]CIL will not locate CIL if this is the very first word of the text). INSCRIPT then uses ‘DIR4.TXT’ to locate and reach each file to be searched. Search results are stored in text file ‘SEARCHRES.TXT’, and can be read separately in a word processor. Alternatively, the search results may be viewed on screen. A practical limit of 200,000 has been imposed on the maximum number of characters that may be viewed on screen at one time. A larger capacity would increase proportionately the memory usage required by the program. The user may select whether to restrict the viewing capacity further to 50,000 characters with the option VIEW – RESTRICT RESULTS). View very long files in a word-processor. There is no restriction on the number of characters that may be printed from INSCRIPT.
Use of INSCRIPT
1. Click on FILE/Set-Path to locate the main folder that contains all the inscriptions. In the example above, it will be ‘C:\INSCHRIFTEN’. Click on OK.
2. Click on SEARCH/Search-Option and select the necessary options. The main search item MUST be set, or INSCRIPT will not start a search.
3. Toggle the button ‘Search sub-folders’ ON. Then click on OK.
4. INSCRIPT will now generate its list of files in ‘DIR4.TXT’ before commencing the search. Wait for the generation phase to end (the pane at the lower left will say ‘Generating files’), and then for the search phase to end (pane says ‘Searching’, returning to ‘Ready’ when search is complete).
5. View the results (VIEW/View-results) on screen, or print them to your printer (FILE/Print results). Alternatively, exit from the program and load the results file ‘SEARCHRES.TXT’ into a word-processor. (Note – it may take several seconds to display a large number of results in the VIEW box.)
6. If you wish, modify the number of characters that can be displayed on screen with the option VIEW-RESTRICT RESULTS (toggles between 50,0000 and 200,000 characters). This view-restriction has no effect on any other process within INSCRIPT.