Converters Options
The controls on this page let you define converters to apply
on files at loading time so as to allow conversions from binary
to text format for example.
The list contains all the registered converters (active
or not). Use checkboxes to enable or disable converters.
The New and Edit buttons
will open the Converter details dialog box. Use the
Remove button to delete a converter from the
list.
Removing a converter
can be undone only by cancelling the whole Options dialog
box.
An Auto-detection feature is provided with
Ellié Computing Merge. This feature allows to configure
converters by simply including detection scripts in the
'macros' application folder. We provide a variety of detectors
built-in with Ellié Computing Merge. If you think that a
particular tool would fit well this purpose and is not
built-in, please contact
us. We will study the possibility of including a detection
script in the main build or in the Add-Ons
part of our website.
If you do not want to ask us for a detection script or the tool
is not widely available. Please read and follow the below
instructions to add converters.
Currently the converter mechanism is better oriented toward
files but is able to handle folders as well. Converters take in
fact a path in input and produces something at a
location specified by Merge. The input file name is
matched against a mask (e.g. *.doc), the converter can do
anything you like.
Each converter contains the following information:
- a name: used to be displayed in the
list.
-
some activation conditions:
- a pattern and optionally a type
of document in Activate for : files
or folders matching the pattern will be
processed by the given converter, and only if the type
document is not specified by the user or is exactly what
was specified (e.g. activate filters which output images
only when choosing image viewer).
- OR an activation script: the
script is a function body of 'function (filename,
expects)', filename being the $(input) as in arguments,
and expects is either undefined if the user did not force
a particular comparison type or one of the known
scripting document identifiers. The return value is true
if the converter should be activated.
-
a technic to compute the output filename:
- an output extension: this text is
appended to the temporary file name before it is set
in $(output) value. For a bitmap you can
use .bmp for example. This option is
useful when the converter application selects its output
type from this extension. This extension is not
particularly used by ECMerge for file type detection (it
uses the data themselves to determine which type of
comparisons to use).
- OR an output filename script: the
script is a function body of 'function (filename)', the
return value is the filename to use as output. The
returned filename must be unique to avoid collision a
function is provided by the virtual file system scripting
for that purpose.
- application: path to application to use.
Can be a batch file.
- arguments: arguments to use with the
application path.
Placeholders $(input) and $(output) will
be replaced by the appropriate file names with full path.
Ellié Computing Merge automatically escapes these
parameters so that you do not have to care about spaces
inside these arguments. You do not need to put quotes around
them.
- outputs a folder: should be checked for
archives expanders, this way Ellié Computing provides a
temporary folder rather than a temporary empty file to
generate the result
- use this converter for folders sub-document
comparisons: activate this when you want the
converter to be used from folders sub-document comparisons.
This option is disabled (and cannot be used) if
outputs a folder is activated. It
is useful to disable
- check exit code: if this option is
checked, Ellié Computing Merge will generate an
error message if the converter ("application"
field) did not exit with the success exit code. If
unchecked, Ellié Computing Merge will assume the
converter ran successfully.
- exit code for success: Success exit code
of the application (usually 0).
If a converter is enabled for certain patterns, it will be
used to preprocess files matching these patterns prior to
comparison. If more that one converter is enabled for a
pattern, all of them will be executed one by one in top-down
order. You can change the order of converters with
the Move Up/ Move
Down buttons near the list.
You cannot save
converted files in place, since saving the converted data will
destroy the original file. Though, you can edit them and save
them elsewhere.
Use of standard
input and output streams: For technical reasons, it is not
possible to use the standard input and output stream in
converters. Please write a batch such as the following example.
Note that under Unices, parameters use the $ prefix in place of
% (i.e. $1 in place of %1)
|
You wish to use a converter with the following
arguments:
app_name --options < $(input) > $(output)
Write a batch containing the following line:
app_name --options < %1 > %2
and call it in the converter record as:
batch $(input) $(output)
|
A converter can take
an archive and generate a folder from this archive. This is
particularly useful for ZIP, tar or any archive format which
can contain several files. You can also use converters for
gzip, bzip files and generally any single-file compression
formats.
See also
