[VAX82A.TAPESUBS]AAAREADME.TXT


                       submitted by:  Thomas W. Danforth
                      Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
                            Woods Hole, Mass.  02543

                           (617) 548-1400   ex. 2876



          TAPESUBS and TRNALL are two routines which  we  have  found  very
     useful  as  user  "friendly"  means to use system services from a high
     level language.  Our computer center deals  with  a  wide  variety  of
     users,  most  of  whom  know Fortran or some other high level language
     fairly well and can get around on the system.  Almost all of the users
     know nothing about the system services but need to be able to use them
     from time to time.  Our response to this  need  is  macro  subroutines
     which  are  accessed  through  the  standard VAX calling procedure and
     perform the systems service and extensive error handling and  checking
     for the user.

     1.  TRNALL

              performs recursive logical name translation using the $TRNLOG
         system service.  The translation continues until either the system
         returns a status of SS$NOTRAN or the first character in the output
         string  is  an  underscore ("").  The file TRNALL.DOC explains the
         calling sequence and the statuses which might be returned from the
         subroutine.

     2.  TAPESUBS

              is a group of  subroutines  which  aid  in  the  handling  of
         "foreign"  or non-VAX labeled tapes.  At our site we have recently
         converted from a Xerox Sigma-7 to VAX, we also  use  HP  computers
         and  our  users receive tapes from all kinds of computers all over
         the world.  Our biggest  problem  is  being  able  to  handle  the
         different  formats  and be able to read and write "foreign" tapes.
         These tape subroutines are a beginning answer to this problem with
         the  ultimate  goal  to  write  a foreign tape handling version of
         "COPY" (maybe by the fall sysmposium).  These are fairly  easy  to
         use  with  a  minimal  knowledge  of  the internals of the system,
         QIO's, ACP's, etc.  They  do  not  use  the  Fortran  I/O  system.
         Therefore, the user must not use the Fortran READ, WRITE, OPEN, or
         CLOSE  statements  for  the  device  being  accessed.    This   is
         applicable  to  other  high  level languages as well.  Also, files
         accessed through these routines do not count  toward  the  process
         limit  of  open  files.   TAPESUBS.DOC  has  the complete "how to"
         documentation on these routines.  The routine TRNALL  is  required
         for TAPESUBS.


          I hope that some of the other people  in  VAX  world  find  these
     helpful.   I  think  the  documentation  should  be  self explanatory;
     however, I will be glad to answer questions if needed.   Any  comments
     and/or corrections will be welcome.