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Contents

• Developer tools
• Research software and data
• Text processing tools
• Unix tools
• Small tools and utilities (through my blog) (link to blog entries)
• Windows and DOS tools and ports
• Library functions
• Greek language tools and resources
• Diversions
• Down the memory lane

See also the software posted on my blog, my IEEE Software Adventures in Code columns, and my repositories on GitHub.

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Developer tools

• The CScout project offers C code analysis and refactoring tools: the CScout refactoring browser and an associated Visual Studio Code plugin.
• git-hot is a Git extension that reports how ``hot'' (often-changing) the current lines or files in a repository are. It derives line lifetime and churn information from Git history, then highlights files and lines that have changed often or recently.
• RDBUnit is a unit testing framework for relational database SQL queries. It allows you to express in a simple way the setup prior to a query, the query, and the expected results. RDBUnit can test SELECT queries as well as queries that are used for creating tables and views. All types of queries can be either embedded into the test script, or they can be included from an external file. The tables for the input and the expected results can be created with minimal ceremony: RDBUnit will automatically infer the types of the tables' fields.
• git-issue is a minimalist decentralized CLI issue management system based on Git, offering (optional) biderectional integration with GitHub and GitLab issue management.
• The git-subst Git subcommand substitutes the specified regular expression with the specified replacement. The substitution is only performed in the Git-tracked files that contain the specified RE located in the current directory and below.

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Research software and data

• Alexandria3k is a Python package that supplies a library and a command-line tool providing efficient relational query access to several large scientific publication open data sets, including Crossref, PubMed, ORCID, DataCite, and US patents. Data are decompressed on the fly, thus allowing the package's use even on storage-restricted laptops. Its development and use are described in the following paper.
  • Diomidis Spinellis. Open reproducible scientometric research with Alexandria3k. PLoS ONE, 18(11):e0294946, November 2023. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0294946
• git-issue is a minimalist decentralized CLI issue management system based on Git, offering (optional) biderectional integration with GitHub and GitLab issue management.
• simple-rolap is a collection of scripts that allows maintainable and time-efficient relational online analytical processing through the specification of small, modular SQL queries. It is mainly suited for querying a rarely modified data set, such as that of GHTorrent. The result of each SQL query is saved in corresponding table, which can then be used by subsequent queries. As a result, each query can be independently developed and tested. Automatic dependency analysis of the queries ensures that new queries can use already calculated results and that every time a query is changed all tables that depend on it (and only those) are automatically repopulated.
• The evolution of the Unix system architecture Through this link you can obtain the replication package, tools, and data files used in the following paper.
  • Diomidis Spinellis and Paris Avgeriou. Evolution of the Unix system architecture: An exploratory case study. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2019. doi:10.1109/TSE.2019.2892149
• The evolution of programming practices in the Unix operating system Through this link you can obtain the scripts and data files used for tracking the evolution of C programming practices in the following paper.
  • Diomidis Spinellis, Panos Louridas, and Maria Kechagia. The evolution of C programming practices: A study of the Unix operating system 1973–2015. In Willem Visser and Laurie Williams, editors, ICSE '16: Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering, pages 748–759, New York, May 2016. Association for Computing Machinery. (doi:10.1145/2884781.2884799)
  The study also uses the cqmetrics tool and the Unix history version-control repository listed below.
• The evolution of the Unix operating system is made available as a version-control repository, covering the period from its inception in 1972 as a five thousand line kernel, to 2015 as a widely-used 26 million line system. The repository contains 659 thousand commits and 2306 merges. The repository employs the commonly used Git system for its storage, and is hosted on the popular GitHub archive. It has been created by synthesizing with custom software 24 snapshots of systems developed at Bell Labs, Berkeley University, and the 386BSD team, two legacy repositories, and the modern repository of the open source FreeBSD system. In total, 850 individual contributors are identified, the early ones through primary research. The data set can be used for empirical research in software engineering, information systems, and software archaeology. Through the following links you can find the repository data and the software used to build it. The repository's contents and development process are described in the following papers, which are made available as a preprint in HTML and PDF form, as well as an associated poster.
  • Diomidis Spinellis. A repository with 44 years of Unix evolution. In MSR '15: Proceedings of the 12th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories, pages 13–16. IEEE, 2015. Best Data Showcase Award.
  • Diomidis Spinellis. A repository of Unix history and evolution. Empirical Software Engineering, 2017. (doi:10.1007/s10664-016-9445-5)
• cqmetrics, provides raw figures and diverse quality metrics associated with C code. These include the number of functions, lines, and statements; the number of occurrences of various keywords; the use of comments and preprocessing; the number and length of identifiers; the Halstead and cyclomatic compexity per function; the use of spacing for indentation; a measure of style inconsistency; and numbers associated with probable style infractions.
• dgsh, the directed graph shell, provides an expressive way to construct sophisticated and efficient big data processing pipelines using existing Unix tools as well as custom-built components. It is a Unix-style shell allowing the specification of pipelines with non-linear scatter-gather operations. These form a directed acyclic process graph, which is typically executed by multiple processor cores, thus increasing the operation's processing throughput. It is described in the following paper.
  • Diomidis Spinellis and Marios Fragkoulis. Extending Unix pipelines to DAGs. IEEE Transactions on Computers, 66(9):1547–1561, September 2017. doi:10.1109/TC.2017.2695447
• The carbon footprint of conference papers Through the DOI link 10.5281/zenodo.2526381 you can obtain the scripts an data files used for geolocating conference locations and authors and calculating the CO2 emissions associated with the corresponding conference travel. This is described in the following paper.
  • Diomidis Spinellis and Panos Louridas. The carbon footprint of conference papers. PLoS ONE, 8(6):e66508, May 2013. (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0066508)
• CScout is a source code analyzer and refactoring browser for collections of C programs. It can process workspaces of multiple projects mapping the complexity introduced by the C preprocessor back into the original C source code files. CScout takes advantage of modern hardware advances (fast processors and large memory capacities) to analyze C source code beyond the level of detail and accuracy provided by current compilers and linkers. See the following articles.
  • Diomidis Spinellis. CScout: A refactoring browser for C. Science of Computer Programming, 75(4):216–231, April 2010. (doi:10.1016/j.scico.2009.09.003)
  • Diomidis Spinellis. Optimizing header file include directives. Journal of Software Maintenance and Evolution: Research and Practice, 21(4):233–251, July/August 2009. (doi:10.1002/smr.369)
  • Diomidis Spinellis. Global analysis and transformations in preprocessed languages. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 29(11):1019–1030, November 2003. (doi:10.1109/TSE.2003.1245303)
• UMLGraph allows the declarative specification and drawing of a number of UML diagrams. See also the article titled On the declarative specification of models. IEEE Software, 20(2):94-96, March/April 2003.
• Wikipedia growth contains the data and source code of a a longitudinal study of Wikipedia's evolution showing that although Wikipedia's scope is increasing, its coverage is not deteriorating, and demonstrating the creation of a large real world scale-free graph through a combination of incremental growth and preferential attachment. The results of this study were published in the article: Diomidis Spinellis and Panagiotis Louridas. The collaborative organization of knowledge. Communications of the ACM, 51(8):68–73, August 2008. (doi:10.1145/1378704.1378720) The data are permanently archived at DOI 10.5281/zenodo.2526703 and the source code at DOI 10.5281/zenodo.2526733.
• Comparative Language Fuzz Testing contains the source code as well as test and processing scripts for comparing how various language implementations allow the detection of simple errors at compile or at run time. The study is based on a diverse corpus of programs written in several programming languages systematically perturbed using a mutation-based fuzz generator. The results obtained prove that languages with weak type systems are significantly likelier than languages that enforce strong typing to let fuzzed programs compile and run, and, in the end, produce erroneous results. The results of this study were published in the following paper. Diomidis Spinellis, Vassilios Karakoidas, and Panagiotis Louridas. Comparative language fuzz testing: Programming languages vs. fat fingers. In PLATEAU 2012: 4th Annual International Workshop on Evaluation and Usability of Programming Languages and Tools—Systems, Programming, Languages and Applications: Software for Humanity (SPLASH 2012). ACM, October 2012.
• A tale of Four Kernels contains the data and SQL queries used in the ICSE paper comparing the code quality attributes of FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, and the Windows Research Kernel. A tale of four kernels. In Wilhem Schäfer, Matthew B. Dwyer, and Volker Gruhn, editors, ICSE '08: Proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Software Engineering, pages 381–390, New York, May 2008. Association for Computing Machinery. Further details appear in the book chapter Quality wars: Open source versus proprietary software. In Andy Oram and Greg Wilson, editors, Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It, chapter 15, pages 259–293. O'Reilly and Associates, Sebastopol, CA, 2010. The data and source code are permanently archived at DOI 10.5281/zenodo.2526915.
• ameso is a complete emulation of the Antikythera mechanism on the Squeak EToys environment. I have developed this as a prototype base for educational activities on the XO machine of the One Laptop per Child initiative. See also the article The Antikythera mechanism: A computer science perspective. IEEE Computer, 41(5):22–27, May 2008. (doi:10.1109/MC.2008.166)
• The Information Train is a winning entry at the "Wizards of Science 2009" scientific experiment contest. The entry demonstrates how computers communicate with each other by setting up a network in which a model train transfers a picture's pixels from one computer (a normal laptop) to the other (an OLPC XO-1). The software is implemented in Processing and Squeak EToys; hardware schematics and construction details are also included. See also the book chapter The information train. In Newton Lee, editor, Digital Da Vinci: Computers in the Arts and Sciences, chapter 7, pages 129–142. Springer, 2014. (doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-0965-0_7)
• api-verify demonstrates a framework design for bundling static verification code with Java classes. It extends the FindBugs static analysis tool with a plugin that checks the corresponding method invocations. See also the article Diomidis Spinellis and Panagiotis Louridas. A framework for the static verification of API calls. Journal of Systems and Software, 80(7):1156–1168, July 2007. (doi:10.1016/j.jss.2006.09.040)
• ckjm calculates Chidamber and Kemerer object-oriented metrics in Java programs by processing the bytecode of the compiled Java files.
• The Decay and Failures of URL References Data and programs used in the article The Decay and Failures of Web References. Communications of the ACM, 46(1):71-77, January 2003.
• e-democracy is a simple e-voting application. The goal is to keep the application's source code short and easy to understand, so that is correctness and trustworthiness (in terms of integrity and anonymity) can be readilly verified and audited.
• User-level operating system transactions allow system administrators and ordinary users to perform a sequence of file operations and then commit them as a group, or abort them without leaving any trace behind. The page contains the source code corresponding to the article User-level operating system transactions. Software: Practice & Experience, 39(14):1215–1233, September 2009. (doi:10.1002/spe.935).
• The GTWeb system demonstrates how trip diaries can be created and presented by exploiting the synergies of integrating different information appliances and publicly accessible databases. A GTWeb site site consists of a trip overview, timelines, maps, and annotated photographs. The site is created by processesing a user's GPS track log and digital camera pictures, linking them with a gazetteer database, topography, and coastline data. The software used for creating the site is accessible from this page. A related article desribes the technical aspects of the approach: Position-annotated photographs: A geotemporal web. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 2(2):72-79, April-June 2003.
• Information Furnace Code samples for setting up an Information Furnace, a basement-installed PC-type device that integrates existing consumer home-control, infotainment, security, and communication technologies to transparently provide user-friendly access and value-added services. See also The information furnace: Consolidated home control. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 7(1):53-69, 2003, and The information furnace: User-friendly home control. In Proceedings of the 3rd International System Administration and Networking Conference SANE 2002, pages 145-174, Maastricht, The Netherlands, May 2002.

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Text processing tools

• bib2xhtml is a program that converts BibTeX files into HTML (specifically XHTML 1.0). The conversion is mostly done by specialized BibTeX style files, derived from a converted bibliography style template. This ensures that the original BibTeX styles are faithfully reproduced.
• Rtfbtx BibTeX style files that create Microsoft Word RTF format output instead of LaTeX output.
• Grconv converts between around 100 character sets, encodings, transcription, and transliteration methods that are used to represent Greek text.

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Unix tools

• ai-cli-lib is a library that detects programs offering interactive command-line editing through the readline API, and modifies their user interface to allow obtaining help from a GPT large language model server, such as Anthropic's or OpenAI's, or one provided through a llama.cpp server. Think of it as a command line copilot.
• manview dynamically presents a Unix manual page formatted in troff as an HTML web page.
• Socketpipe connects a remote command to local input and output processes without the data copy and context switching overhead of the customary rsh or ssh pipelines.
• Fileprune will delete files from the specified set targetting a given distribution of the files within time as well as size, number, and age constraints. Its main purpose is to keep a set of daily-created backup files in managable size, while still providing reasonable access to older versions. Specifying a size, file number, or age constraint will simply remove files starting from the oldest, until the constraint is met. The distribution specification (exponential, Gaussian (normal), or Fibonacci) provides finer control of the files to delete, allowing the retention of recent copies and the increasingly agressive pruning of the older files. You can read more in the article Organized pruning of file sets. ;login:, 28(3):39-42, June 2003.
• pmonitor allows you to monitor a job's progress by specifying the name of the corresponding command, its process id, or the the file being processed.
• Deltac Byte difference compression method: a very simple lossles compressor that does better than LZW on greymap images.
  Usenet newsgroup comp.sources.misc v13i48. This program is currently used by the CEDAR USPS Office of Advanced Technology Database of Handwritten Cities, States, ZIP Codes, Digits, and Alphabetic Characters. http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/Databases/CDROM1/
• Pbmtochar, chartopbm Bitmap to ASCII: convert a bitmap to ASCII line printer art using font pattern matching.
  Usenet newsgroup comp.sources.misc v11i80.
• Stat Shell interface for the stat(2) system call. Allow Unix shell scripts to process file characteristics .
  Usenet newsgroup comp.sources.misc v10i82.
• Sed Unix sed(1) stream editor A POSIX compliant re-implementation of the Unix sed(1) stream editor.
  Part of Apple's macOS, 4.4BSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. A Rust reimplementation is part of the uutils project.
• RCS Tools Check RCS checked out files, remove files that can be safely checked out, and create a project state list.
• Tarfix Convert and fix tar(1) archives. Convert filenames in tar(1) files between different operating system conventions.
  Usenet newsgroup alt.sources Message-ID: 1990May21.134807.17537@cc.ic.ac.uk.

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Windows and DOS tools and ports

• Outwit A tool suite that provides console-based access to the Windows clipboard, registry, databases, document properties, and links. See also Outwit: Unix tool-based programming meets the Windows world. In USENIX 2000 Technical Conference Proceedings, pages 149-158, San Diego, CA, USA, June 2000. Usenix Association.
• Rtfbtx BibTeX style files that create Microsoft Word RTF format output instead of LaTeX output.
• The puttyclip patch to Simon Tatham's putty Win32 Telnet and SSH client allows you to easily copy remote files and the output of remote Unix programs to your local Windows clipboard.
• MS-DOS Perl 3.0 The original port of Perl 3.0 to MS-DOS.
• Trace Trace MS-DOS system calls. Executes a program logging the system calls it makes.
  Part of the SIMTEL archive. See also Trace: A tool for logging operating system call transactions. Operating Systems Review, 28(4):56-63, October 1994.
• Popen for MS-DOS Functions popen(3S), pclose(3S) under MS-DOS. An implementation of popen(3S), pclose(3S) (open stdio pipes) under MS-DOS.
  Usenet newsgroup alt.sources Message-ID: 1669@gould.doc.ic.ac.uk.

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Library functions

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• Credit card checksum verifier (C source code).
• Zopen Compress library routines: read and write compressed files opened with the zopen function call (C source code).
  Part of 4.4BSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD.

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Greek language tools and resources

• The Greek classifier will process lines of ASCII text, and will print those lines that (probably) match a Greek surname.
• Grconv converts between around 100 character sets, encodings, transcription, and transliteration methods that are used to represent Greek text.
• Greek ispell Greek dictionary and related files for the ispell spell checker.
• Elvis Greek Character maps and digraphs for editing Greek text in Windows CP1253 using the elvis vi editor clone.

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Diversions

• Chemical Element Trump Cards Source code and ready-to-print sheets for a Top Trumps game based on chemical element properties. Available in several languages.
• International Obfuscated C Code Contest winners
  • International Obfuscated C Code Contest 1988 winner Best abuse of the rules category.
  • International Obfuscated C Code Contest 1990 winner A BASIC interpreter. Best Language Tool.
  • International Obfuscated C Code Contest 1991 winner A BASIC compiler. Most Well-Rounded Confusion.
  • International Obfuscated C Code Contest 1995 winner Abusing The Rules
• The Usenet Cookbook Brian Reid's recipe compilation from the Usenet alt.gourmand group in Microsoft Windows Help format (imperial and metric unit versions)
• Ransom note code Postscript code to print ransom notes.

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Down the memory lane

• TI-99/4A Source code and screen dumps of programs written for the TI-99/4A home computer in TI BASIC (1982-1983).
• Pascal programs Source code and executable code for programs written in Turbo Pascal on the original IBM-PC (1985-1986). The programs are a TMS-9900 family assembler, a universal parser, and a configurable database system.
• C Profiler An execution profiler designed for programs compiled using the Microsoft C 16-bit compilers on the 8086 family of processors (1988).
• Ericsson GH-388 interfacing Programs that interface to an Ericsson GH-388 mobile phone at the frame protocol level. (Please read the relevant portion of the frequently asked questions before sending me mail concerning this program.)
• RC Universal remote control for the HP-100 LX palmtop PC. Provides a configuration script language. See also Palmtop programmable appliance controls. Personal Technologies (Personal and Ubiquitous Computing), 2(1):11-17, March 1998.
• Progcalc Programmer's calculator for the HP-100/HP-200LX palmtop PCs.
• Hpsound Sound play program for the HP-95 LX palmtop PC. Utilises the D/A converter of the HP95-LX to provide realistic sound effects.
• MP3 file mixer Create, edit, and play mixed sequences of MP3 (MPEG layer 3) files.

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