09 Dec 16 20:46, you wrote to me:   
      
    PH>>> Thanks Mark!   
    PH>>> Appreciate your help :)   
      
    ml>> you're welcome...   
      
    PH> That's the thing I really like about our wider community we're all   
    PH> fundamentally helpful guys that have (I think) a similar desire to   
    PH> tinker and assist - so again, thanks my good man :)   
      
   yup... as long as politics, religion, or money are involved, we do all seem to   
   get along pretty well :lol:   
      
    PH>>> Paul's / Michael's suggestions) but I am holding on to this file!   
    PH>>> It's like gold dust around these parts!   
      
    ml>> i originally wrote to ask paulQ to send you a copy of his and then i   
    ml>> remembered that i should have one on my FMail/TimEd point which i did   
    ml>> so heck, i just sent it over rather than you having to dance the   
    ml>> dance you were fixing to get started in... feel free to share it   
    ml>> where ever it is needed... it is only 400 null characters... if you   
    ml>> weren't on winwhatever, we could have been over and done in a minute   
    ml>> with dd ;)   
      
    PH> Well I have been moving in the direction of Linux stuff for quite some   
    PH> time now, and although I am still running a lot of stuff on windows I   
    PH> do have my low power fm radio station powered by an Ubuntu box. I also   
    PH> set up the Usenet NNTP server using Debian, and the latest additions   
    PH> to the home are raspbian powered Raspberry Pi's :)   
      
   slowly but surely you are leaving the nest and joining the ranks of the truly   
   free ones :lol:   
      
    PH> So perhaps in time I could be considered to have come across from the   
    PH> dark side!   
      
   nah... i can't call it the dark side... there's so much more light around and   
   it is easier to see what's going on, really...   
      
      
   FWIW: the way to create that file with dd?   
      
     dd if=/dev/zero of=lastread.bbs count=1 bs=400   
      
   this creates a file one block in size with a block size of 400 bytes... we're   
   reading from /dev/zero which outputs null characters... we only need null   
   characters at this point because the first user, generally the sysop, has read   
   no messages in any of the HMB areas... technically speaking, lastread.bbs is   
   made of X number of blocks of 200 records... these records are one word in   
   size... a word is an unsigned 16bit integer... its maximum value is 65535   
   which is (2^16)-1 (two to the 16th power minus one)... in hex that's $FFFF in   
   pascal notation or 0xFFFF in C notation...   
      
   how does lastread.bbs work? well, we start it off with one block of records   
   for the first user record in the users.bbs file... as noted above, this block   
   has the internal structure of 200 records, one record for each HMB area...   
   space for all 200 possible areas is always allocated... so for just the first   
   user, there's one 400 byte file... add a second user and the file is now 2 x   
   200 records (2 x 400 bytes)... add a third user and you have three user   
   records of 200 words each which is 1200 bytes total... previously i showed my   
   HMB files and my lastread.bbs was 422400 bytes in size... dividing that by 400   
   gives me 1056 user records which coorsponds to the actual number of user   
   accounts on my BBS... yes, this file is relationally linked to the users.bbs   
   file... the relationship is based on the users.bbs record numbers... the   
   physical record number, not one stored in the file like some BBSes do...   
   enough of that, though...   
      
   NOTE: if you need a file of some size, dd is the way to go... while testing   
   the above, i tried one without the "count" and had to CTRL-C out of it... this   
   was only a couple of seconds and it had already created a file that was some   
   4Meg in size... you can also create a file with random data in it by reading   
   from /dev/urandom... as its name indicates, it is purely random bytes...   
   someone might suggest to use /dev/random but it will eventually block (stop   
   outputting data) unless your system is busy... random data is generated by   
   system activity...   
      
   )\/(ark   
      
   Always Mount a Scratch Monkey   
   Do you manage your own servers? If you are not running an IDS/IPS yer doin' it   
   wrong...   
   ... All you can really do is pop a Valium.   
   ---   
    * Origin:  (1:3634/12.73)