DFIND, Utilities, Assign logical names to a wildcarded file spec.
DFIND - A program to assign logical names to a wildcarded file spec.
COPYRIGHT (C) 1993, 1994, 1995 Erik Ahlefeldt.
VERSION 2.0
SUMMARY.
-------
Dfind is a program that assigns short logical names to a wildcarded file speci-
fication. These logical names can then be used in all DCL commands, thereby
saving you a lot of typing. It serves as a partial replacement for the
DIRECTORY command and can greatly reduce (or eliminate) the need to SET
DEFAULT to different directories. At the sites that have tried this utility,
it has become as indispensable as the command recall facility. You will wonder
how you ever managed without it. Trust me.
Example.
$ D :== $DEV:[DIR]DFIND/PREFIX=D ! in login.com or sys$sylogin
$ D DISK1:[U*.S*]*WIDGETS.*
D1: DISK1:[USERGROUP.SANTA]WIDGETS.COM
D2: DISK1:[USERGROUP.SANTA]SET_WIDGETS.COM
D3: DISK1:[USERGROUP.SANTA]UNSET_WIDGETS.COM
D5: DISK1:[USERGROUP.SHORTHORN]BASS_WIDGETS.EXE
D5: DISK1:[USERGROUP.SHORTHORN]DELETE_WIDGETS.COM
D6: DISK1:[USERGROUP.SHORTHORN]WIDGETS.COM
$ EDIT D1 ! edit DISK1:[USERGROUP.SANTA]WIDGETS.COM
$ COPY D1 D6 ! copy DISK1:[USERGROUP.SANTA]WIDGETS.COM
$ DELETE D1:;* ! delete DISK1:[USERGROUP.SANTA]WIDGETS.COM;*
$ D ! redisplay D logicals (if any)
D1: DISK1:[USERGROUP.SANTA]WIDGETS.COM
D2: DISK1:[USERGROUP.SANTA]SET_WIDGETS.COM
D3: DISK1:[USERGROUP.SANTA]UNSET_WIDGETS.COM
D5: DISK1:[USERGROUP.SHORTHORN]BASS_WIDGETS.COM
D5: DISK1:[USERGROUP.SHORTHORN]DELETE_WIDGETS.COM
D6: DISK1:[USERGROUP.SHORTHORN]WIDGETS.COM
$ DIR /DATE/SIZE=ALL D2:;-1 ! dir of previous version of file
Directory DISK1:[USERGROUP.SANTA]
SET_WIDGETS.COM;3 3/8 12-DEC-1993 10:42:33.07
Total of 1 file, 3/8 blocks.
$ SET FILE D4/PROT=W:E ! set protection on file
$ D *.COB ! set up new "D" list of cobol
! programs in default directory
D1: DISK17:[PROGRAMMERS.BRUCE]CONVERT_EBCDIC.COB
D2: DISK17:[PROGRAMMERS.BRUCE]INVOICING.COB
D3: DISK17:[PROGRAMMERS.BRUCE]MAKE_SPIKE.COB
USAGE AND INSTALLATION.
----------------------
Dfind is designed to be run as a DCL foreign command. I would suggest including
it in the systemwide login file (usually pointed to by the SYS$SYLOGIN logical
name), otherwise put it in your own LOGIN.COM. Unzip the distribution set in a
safe place, and put the the file DFIND.EXE (VAX) or DFIND.EXE_AXP (Alpha) in
the directory where you keep third-party or DECUS utilities and set protection
on this file to be "W:E" or "W:RE". (If installing an an Alpha you may want to
rename DFIND.EXE_AXP to DFIND.EXE).
Typically you would set up a number of foreign comands in SYS$SYLOGIN file
with different prefixes as follows:
$ A :== $DEV:[DIR]DFIND/PREFIX=A
$ B :== $DEV:[DIR]DFIND/PREFIX=B
$ C :== $DEV:[DIR]DFIND/PREFIX=C
$ D :== $DEV:[DIR]DFIND/PREFIX=D
$ DAP :== $DEV:[DIR]DFIND/PREFIX=D/APPEND
This will allow a user to have four separate lists on the go at once.
Then to use Dfind with, for example, prefix B, type
$ B [file-specification] [qualifiers]
Dfind, where possible, works in a similar way to the DIRECTORY command. So
Read access is required to the directory to obtain the name of a file; Read
access to the files is required to obtain information other than the file
name e.g. if using the "/SINCE" qualifier.
An execution of Dfind without a file specification will display the previous
logical name list for that prefix. If there is no previous list it will
do nothing. Some qualifiers are mutually exclusive, therefore I have taken
arbitrary decisions (sensible I hope) about which qualifiers take precedence
over which others. If you give Dfind a file specification without version
numbers it will assign logical names to files without version numbers; if
you give Dfind a file specification with version numbers it will assign logical
names to files with version numbers. Try "$ D *.COM" and "$ D *.COM;*" to see
the difference.
Logical names are defined by default in the LNM$PROCESS table, you can also
define them in other logical name tables, privilege permitting, by use of
the /TABLE qualifier.
QUALIFIERS.
----------
/APPEND - appends new logical names to the existing logical name list for
this prefix. e.g. if you have previously done a D command which set
up D1, D2 and D3, this execution of D will set up D4, D5 etc and
display the list from D4 onwards. (Use the D command without any
qualifiers to display the whole list from D1 on.)
Example. "$ D L*.OBJ /APPEND"
/BACKUP - select files by backup date, used with /BEFORE and /SINCE qualifiers
The effect of this qualifier is similar to the /BACKUP qualifier
with the DIRECTORY command.
Example. "$ D L*.OBJ,L*.EXE /BACKUP /SINCE=YESTERDAY"
/BEFORE - select files before specified date and time.
Example. "$ D DSK1:[PROGRAMS.*.EXE]RHINO*.EXE /BEFORE=01-APR-1993"
/CREATED - creation date, used with /BEFORE and /SINCE.
Example. "$ D /CREATED /SINCE=YESTERDAY NET*.LOG"
/DELETE - deletes logical name list only, NOT the files associated with those
logical names. In practice this is rarely used since the default
behaviour of Dfind is to delete the previous logical name list
before assigning new logicals. However, if you ran out of dynamic
memory on a previous execution of Dfind because you were trying to
define a sqillion logicals, you may need to deassign those logical
names with the "/DELETE" qualifier to free up some dynamic memory
for your process before attempting to do anything else.
Example. "$ D /DELETE"
/EXPIRED - expiry date, used with /BEFORE and /SINCE
Example. "$ D /EXPIRED /BEFORE=02-APR-1993 SYS$SCRATCH:*.DAT"
/HELP - display a very brief Help screen.
Example. "$ D /HELP"
/MAXIMUM - maximum number of logical names to define (default 120). Once
Dfind hits this limit it will skip defining any more logical names
and print an informational message. On any system there is going
to be a limit on how many logical names you can define before you
run out of dynamic memory or some process quota.In practice you will
find that more than 20 or 40 logicals in a single Dfind list gets
unwieldy. You may increase this number up to 11111 as of version
2.0 of Dfind but you will likely run out of dynamic memory long
before you get that many logical names defined.
Example. "$ D SYS$LOGIN:*.* /MAX=500"
"$ D SYS$LOGIN:*.* /MAX=15" - stop at 15 logical names
/MODIFIED - modified date, used with /BEFORE and /SINCE.
Example. "$ D /MODIFIED /SINCE DATABASE$:*.DAT" - modified today
/PREFIX - nominate a prefix (up to 3 characters) for logical names. I prefer
the shortest prefixes because the whole idea of Dfind is to save
typing long file specs. However you can define prefixes up to
3 characters long. Prefixes of more than 3 characters will be
truncated.
Example. "$ D EARTH::L*.*;* /PREFIX=XYZ" - change default prefix
/SINCE - select files since specified date and time.
Example. "$ D/SINCE=YESTERDAY-2-00:00 L*.*;* /PREFIX=XYZ"
/TABLE - select logical name table to use, the default is the process
logical name table LNM$PROCESS. You can define a Dfind logical
name list in any existing logical name table if you have the
privilege to do so. Beware of running out of JTQUOTA if using
the LNM$JOB table.
Example. "$ D DSK2:[PRGMR.BRUCE...]FIND.C /PREFIX=JJ/TABLE=LNM$JOB"
FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS.
--------------------
Fix file-spec "stickiness" bug.
Add an /EXCLUDE qualifier when I figure out how to do it.
Improve error handling.
Rewrite the file attribute retrieval subroutine in C.
Create a proper Help file.
CAUTIONS.
---------
Dfind defines short logical names of the form Xnn. If your site or application
uses similar logical names for whatever purpose, be aware that use of Dfind
can overwrite existing logical names. You should therefore choose prefixes
with care and allocate these for creation only by Dfind. Some third party
software, the Powerhouse 4GL for example, does symbol translation
when interpreting the name of a program to be run etc. If you have set up
Dfind with "$ A :=== $dev:[dir]dfind/prefix=A" and you write a temporary
Powerhouse program called A.QZS, when you tell Powerhouse to use the
program "A" it will translate the symbol A and tell you that Dfind is not
a valid Powerhouse program!
Dfind is not a privileged image, and does not give a user the power to do
anything that he or she does not already have privilege to do. If a user
does something foolish or disastrous with Dfind, they could have done it
just as well without Dfind.
MISCELLANEOUS.
-------------
Dfind source code consists of the main Cobol program DFIND.COB , a Fortran
subroutine FILE_ATT.FOR which gets file attributes, a Macro stub EXTDEF.MAR
which gets hold of external definitions which Cobol cannot, and a CLD file
DFINDCLD.CLD. A crude command procedure to build Dfind is supplied as
MAKE_DFIND.COM. Version 2.0 of Dfind has been built on VAX using VMS 5.5-1
and COBOL 4.3 and on ALPHA using VMS 6.1 and COBOL 2.1. The Alpha version
will probably not run on a version earlier than 6.1, so you will need to
build or VEST your own version for the Alpha if you do not have V6.1 or later.
DISCLAIMER.
----------
This program is supplied without warranty of any kind, either express or
implied. See file $GNU_GENERAL_PUBLIC_LICENSE.TXT supplied with this program
for full details.
COPYRIGHT.
---------
All the source code for Dfind is original and was written by Erik Ahlefeldt,
with the exception of the FILE_ATT subroutine which was adapted from a freely
available DECUS program (see FILE_ATT.FOR source for acknowledgement). No claim
is made as to the copyright disposition of the FILE_ATT subroutine, BUT all
other code is copyright of the author. The author retains the copyright of
this program and it is made available for use under the terms of the GNU
GENERAL PUBLIC SOFTWARE LICENSE. See file $GNU_GENERAL_PUBLIC_LICENSE.TXT
supplied with this program for further details.
BUGS.
----
When invoking Dfind with multiple file-specifications on the command line,
the device-directory spec is not "sticky" as it is with the directory command.
This will be fixed in a later release.
Some obscure error conditions may still do a display of the kind "**** ERROR
IN CALL TO LIB$..." because I haven't got around to cleaning up the error
handling.
No other known bugs at this stage (they're all undocumented features), BUT as
mentioned above the error handling is not perfect (to say the least!). I have
been playing with this program for over ten years and I figured it was better
to get it out as is, rather than spend another ten years cleaning it up. I
will look at any serious bug reports you care to send, when I have the time.
My email address (August 1995) is "oahlefel@metz.une.edu.au" Erik Ahlefeldt.