Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.139 October 14, 1994 1) Getting the most out of Mendele (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 12:10 From: nmiller@trincoll.edu Subject: Getting the most out of Mendele [Herewith a completely revised version of the how-to-do-it that was promised a few days ago. Thanks to Khayem Bochner who vetted the document. nm] Mendele's Archives __________________ Since by now (10/94) there's a lot of Mendele to read it's time to focus on making it easier for subscribers old and new to work their way through the thicket. This document deals with (I) getting back issues and (II) searching the files. ****************************************************************************** (I) Getting back issues _______________________ Most subscribers simply want to get (some or all) back issues. The best way is to download files via "anonymous ftp" directly from Mendele at Trinity. For those who don't have full access to the Internet and thus cannot use ftp, it is possible to get recent files via e-mail. I.1. Back issues via anonymous ftp The procedure sounds daunting but isn't. Here is how it's done: a. Begin by typing "ftp ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu" b. At the request for Name, type "anonymous" c. At the request for Password, type your e-mail address d. At the message "Guest login ok, access restrictions apply", type "cd /pub/mendele/files". e. The message "CWD command successful" means that you can now retrieve any file you like. 1. For a list of the files, type "dir". 2. To download a file to your computer, type "get filename" f. When finished, type "quit" or "bye". Below is an actual log of an ftp session. In order to make it easier to follow, the user's input is shown in upper-case. This is for illustrative purposes only; in actual use, stay with lower-case. ***************************** >FTP FTP.MENDELE.TRINCOLL.EDU Wollongong FTP User Process (Version 5.2-05) Trying 157.252.16.7 ... Connection Opened Using 8-bit bytes 220 dot FTP server (SunOS 4.1) ready. Name (dot.cs.trincoll.edu:nmiller): ANONYMOUS 331 Guest login ok, send ident as password. Password: NMILLER 230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply. >CD /PUB/MENDELE/FILES 250 CWD command successful. >GET VOL2.101 200 PORT command successful. 150 ASCII data connection for vol2.101 (157.252.10.30,2085) (4968 bytes). 226 ASCII Transfer complete. Local: DUA2:[FACULTY.NMILLER]VOL2.101; Remote: vol2.101 5110 bytes transfered in 0.55 seconds (9.07 Kbytes/second) >GET VOL2.104 200 PORT command successful. 150 ASCII data connection for vol2.104 (157.252.10.30,2086) (3750 bytes). 226 ASCII Transfer complete. Local: DUA2:[FACULTY.NMILLER]VOL2.104; Remote: vol2.104 3856 bytes transfered in 0.42 seconds (8.97 Kbytes/second) >QUIT 221 Goodbye I.2. Back issues via e-mail This is described in a later section of this document [II.2]. ****************************************************************************** (II) Searching the files ________________________ There are two ways of searching the files. The first is via the Table of Contents file, the second is by a "string" search of the files themselves. II.1. The Table of Contents file Originally compiled by Bob Rothstein, it is a list of the Subject: lines for all issues of Mendele. The file, which is updated weekly, is available via anonymous ftp (see above). The holdings are: contents.1 (May 15, 1991 to May 14, 1992) contents.2 (May 15, 1992 to May 14, 1993) contents.3 (May 15, 1993 to May 14, 1994) contents.4 (May 15, 1994 to present) The simplest use of the contents files is for browsing. Any file reader will serve. It is also possible to search for a word or phrase. This is called a "string" search. There are many software packages for doing searches. If you have one, you might consider downloading all 4 files to your machine and doing an offline search. Here is an example of a search for posts dealing with "theater". The software used was grep.exe which is in the public domain. It enables not only a string search but prints any specified number of context lines. The command was: grep -i -B10 theat contents.* and the results are shown below. Contents of Vol. 1 no. 139 January 19, 1991 1) Yiddish theatre in Cairo (Yude-Leyb Proger) ---------------------------------------------------- Contents of Vol. 2 no. 185 April 27, 1993 3) Yiddish theater/show/camp? (Rifka Igel) ---------------------------------------------------- Contents of Vol. 3.002 May 16, 1993 4) Yiddish theater and Klezmer music in New York (David Niemeijer) ---------------------------------------------------- Contents of Vol. 3.226 February 10, 1994 1) Yiddish theater diminished (Michael Auslin) ---------------------------------------------------- Contents of Vol. 3.230 February 11, 1994 4) Yiddish theater (Paul Bakan) ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.041 June 26, 1994 2) Festival of Yiddish Music and Theater (Henry Mullish) Any or all of these files can then be downloaded. II.2. "String" searches of the files This kind of string search is not limited by the (always arbitrary) words in the Subject: line. It searches the entire text. You can do this easily by sending e-mail to the Yale listserver. The procedure is as follows. Please bear in mind that you're dealing with a big beheyme of a computer that doesn't know any khokhmes, which means that you have to do things _exactly_ as described here. II.2.a. The heart of the matter is what is called the "job skeleton". It looks like this. // JOB Echo=No Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * select /* This is the basic stripped-down job skeleton. Think of it as an envelope whose contents (specific commands that you will write) will be understood and obeyed. Any search command to the listserver _must_ be written inside the job skeleton. If you intend to do a search it is _strongly_ recommended that you copy the job skeleton to a separate file (you might name it "zukh.oys"). You can then edit and reedit that file, making only the appropriate changes without disturbing the envelope itself. Here is an example of a command to search for every occurrence of the name Asch. //DBlook JOB Echo=No Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * select asch in mendele index /* Two commands are involved: search (select) for a string and list all hits (index). Mail this to: listserv@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu and if you've done everything right back comes the following. > Select asch in mendele --> Database MENDELE, 12 hits. > index Item # Date Time Recs Subject ------ ---- ---- ---- ------- 000097 94/04/29 10:32 236 Mendele Vol 3.337 000126 94/06/10 16:29 192 Mendele Vol 4.019 000130 94/06/14 13:05 175 Mendele Vol 4.023 000132 94/06/15 19:52 158 Mendele Vol 4.025 000138 94/06/19 15:05 216 Mendele Vol 4.031 000140 94/06/20 16:14 169 Mendele Vol 4.033 000143 94/06/22 16:58 274 Mendele Vol 4.036 000144 94/06/23 14:02 267 Mendele Vol 4.037 000146 94/06/24 12:02 173 Mendele Vol 4.039 000152 94/06/30 14:24 199 Mendele Vol 4.044 000166 94/07/18 12:09 180 Mendele Vol 4.061 000200 94/08/26 18:30 204 Mendele Vol 4.094 The listserver has found 12 numbers of Mendele in which Asch's name appears. Now assume you want to see Vol 3.337 and vol 4.031. Back to the job skeleton. Here's how it looks now. //DBlook JOB Echo=No Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * select asch in mendele print 000097 print 000138 /* Note that you write the Item # (col.1 of the index) and not Mendele's internal names. Send this to the listserver and back come the two numbers you asked for. Suppose you'd wanted all 12 files. Then you could have written this. //DBlook JOB Echo=No Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * select asch in mendele print all /* Here's how to download any desired number(s) of Mendele. (At the present time (10/94) the earliest available is Vol 3.241 (2/22/94). These numbers are subject to change; decisions are entirely in the hands of the Yale Computer Center. // JOB Echo=No Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * select "Mendele Vol 3.243" in mendele since 91/06/01 select "Mendele Vol 4.018" in mendele since 91/06/01 print all /* II.2.b. More complex searches A string search is not limited to a single word or name. Here are a few examples of what you can do. // JOB Echo=No Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * select or in mendele since 91/06/01 index select and in mendele since 91/06/01 index /* These examples should take care of most of your needs. If you want information on how to do really fancy stuff with Boolean searches, send this message to the listserver: info database If you have any problems with any of this (or if you find any of it unclear, badly-written or plain incomprehensible) please let me know. Noyekh Miller ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.139 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files Archives available via gopher on: gopher.cic.net Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu