Ping to file

[crompton@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (D. Crompton)]

Continuing in the direction of making things easier in
NOS, I have rewritten the Ping command to allow background
pings to a file. This allows a command line like:

   Ping wa3dsp.ampr.org 100 10000 0 ping.dat

The increment flag (0 above) has been changed so that a 0 indicates
no increment and a 1 (or any non zero) increments by 1. If the filename
is left off the command writes to the screen as normal. In addition a
time field has been added. The left most field displayed is the date and
time. Headers are as normal for screen display but appear only once at the
beginning of the ping to file.

This file dump will allow a (outside of NOS) program to perform analysis
of a path. I.E. ping a station for a number of days storing it to a file,
and then analyzing it for trends - best times of day - patterns of problems
etc.

I find pings like this over long durations very valuable. Currently a
ping session can be openned and then record of that session started but
this is rather clumsy and also the file format is the same as the screen.

Multiple ping to file sessions can be openned. The session screen in ping
to file sessions indicates the ping is active and writing to a file.

If anyone is interested in the code let me know. I have not heard any
comments about the 'tcp view' or 'netrom route sort' code so I am not
sure if anyone really cares, but at least I and the people in the Phila/
NJ/NY areas that I share the code with will use it.

Doug