Search and Retrieve

History

While the entertainment and support BBS customers for Galacticomm's The Major BBS were, by 1990, served by a wide variety of software products, the business customer was still under served. Moonshae Telecomm recognized this, and began work on a couple of business oriented modules, one being Search and Retrieve, a text-file database manager and alternative to The Major Database.

Completed in March 1990, Moonshae, by then called Galactic Innovations, released the product for $199.00, affordable when compared to The Major Database.

After the Galacticomm purchase, Galacticomm continued to market Search and Retrieve.

Utility Information

Search and Retrieve is an ASCII text file database manager for the BBS. It can support multiple categories, each with its own file system directory. All files in the directory automatically become active in the database. Users can search for strings or keywords, and display files containing matches. A "brief search" is also available. Categories can be password protected.

The Search and Retrieve module will allow you to search through categories of text files for particular strings. You will then be given the opportunity to display any files that contained the string you searched for.

Selecting a Category

When you first select Search and Retrieve from the main menuing system, you'll be given a list of categories of files that are available for searching. Each category will have a select character next to it. Simply select which category you wish to search first – you'll always be able to exit back to the category menu to switch to a different category. Once you select a category, you will be given the option to list available files within the category, display a file, search files, or brief search files.

List Available Files

Choosing this option will display a list of files in your current category to you. Each file will have a time and date associated with it (you'll be able to specify starting dates for your searches). Each file listed is an ASCII text file that you can search and display using the other options on this menu.

Search Files

Use this option to search all the files in your current category for a particular string. You'll prompted for the string you wish to search for first, and then you'll get this prompt:

(A)nd, (O)r, (B)egin search, e(X)it, or ?:

By selecting A or O, you'll be prompted for another string to search for, in addition to the first one you entered. By selecting A or O, you're saying "search all the files in this category, and tell me which ones have my first string AND my second string", or "...my first string OR my second string", respectively.

Once you select your string(s), you'll be prompted for a starting date. Just hit RETURN to search all files. Otherwise, if you enter a date, only files that are dated later than (or the same as) the date you entered will be searched.

Search and Retrieve will then search all the files for your string(s). If it finds any files matching your search, it will prompt you for whether or not you want to display the file. If you don't choose to display the file right away, you can just remember the file name, and then display the file later with the D option.

Brief Search of Files

The B option is exactly like the S option (see above), except when it comes to what happens when a file is found that matches your search. The B option prompts you for a string, whether or not you want to do an AND/OR search, another string (if an AND/OR search), and a starting date for the search.

When Search and Retrieve finds a file that matches your search, you're not prompted for displaying the file right away. Instead, you're displayed the file name, and one or two lines above and below where the match was found in the file. This way, you can see the match, and see whether or not it's in the correct context to be of interest to you. If it is, you can remember the file name, and display the whole file later with the D option.

Display File

Use this option to display a file in this category to your screen. If you forgot the name of the file, you can use the L option to list all the files in this category.