From: watson@maple.terabase.com Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 1999 10:24 PM To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com Subject: Re: Process Permanent Files In article <37E7FA37.78B9BB41@videotron.ca>, JF Mezei writes: > >Does anyone know what the last two bytes really mean/come from in the logical >name that is created when you $OPEN from DCL ? > They are an IFI, and they do point to an IFAB, but in a sneaky way. RMS actually keeps a separate list of IFABs (and I assume other structures) for each access mode (well, not Kernel, because RMS routines themselves only run in Executive). A PPF IFI is a reference to an Executive mode IFAB. You can see this if you try sticking it into an empty FAB structure, attach a NAM block, and call SYS$DISPLAY: - If you leave the PPF bit set and call in user mode, you get the PPF logical name in the NAM; - If you clear the PPF bit and call in user mode, you get an error; - If you clear the PPF bit and use SYS$CMEXEC to call SYS$DISPLAY, you get the real name of the file. I have a small routine that uses this to get the name of a network job's SYS$OUTPUT file (including correct version number) into a symbol, so it can rename it to an appropriate directory without worrying about all the other instances of the job trying to do the same thing. -- George Watson watson_g@eisner.decus.org