File finders. (Part 1 of two)

File Finders

Scene 1: Fade in to man hunched over keyboard, papers scattered all over the desk, somewhere between 10 and 300 Coke (Classic) cans littering every available surface. He mumbles, "What did I call that damned file?"

Scene 2: Same room, same man, same Coke cans. Over the intercom, a voice announces "That's right. All the reports you wrote that reference the database variable TERMINATION-DATE must now use RELEASE-DATE. Oh, and some of them need to be working tomorrow morning. Operations didn't say which ones."

You've probably been in one of these scenes before. Somewhere out there in the great diskabyss are files you need, but you know not where. I know of five solutions to this particularly painful problem--one is shareware, three are free, and one is a little known offering from Data General. I'll review the three free programs this time--SCAN, FINDALL and FIND 0.01. Next month I'll finish up by reviewing FIND, the Data General …