[thelist] Automate zip?

[Allen Schaaf]

At 05:53 PM 5/20/04, Diane Soini wrote:
>Hi, please forgive me as I'm a total Windows idiot. I know next to nothing.

No apologies needed. Even Microsoft is a complete idiot about windows.

>I'd like to be able to automate the making of Windows .zip files, by 
>making it easier to zip up a directory and exclude certain files 
>automatically. It appears that if you buy the latest version of WinZip you 
>can download a command line utility that might be able to do this. I would 
>rather not have to ask anybody to buy something to accomplish this, however.
>
>To make matters worse, it would be nice if I could do some quick editing 
>of an XML file in the directory in question right before the moment the 
>directory is being zipped. Since the edit is always the same (edit 
>something out, then put it back after it's zipped) it ought to be able to 
>be automated, too.
>
>Piece-o-cake on Unix. Haven't a clue on Windows. Suggestions?

Perl is probably the way to go. Get ActiveState Perl and install it. There 
is a book, "Automating Windows with Perl" by Scott McMahan from R&D Books 
(an imprint of Miller-Freeman), ISBN 0-87930-589-4, that covers almost this 
exact scenario.

Good luck,


Allen Schaaf
Sr. Technical Writer
http://www.doctordoc.info/

Who says bad manuals aren't a risk to your life?  Just ask the passengers 
of the jet where the engine caught fire because the company's maintenance 
manual was wrong about how to install one key bolt.  (NTSB Report on GE CF6 
engine fire, American Airlines flight 574, July 9, 1998. 
<http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1999/AAB9903.htm>)