topic Re: Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations in Operating System - OpenVMS

Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations

tsgdavid — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 19:51:10 GMT

I am beginning the process of migrating a significant amount of C language code from Alpha VMS 7.1-1H2 to Integrity VMS 8.3.

On the old system, the programmers were using a product called "Innovator" to edit their C language code. This is DECWindows interface that manages the code in blocks and allows the user to cut and paste blocks of code. I don't believe that the Innovator product exists any more.

I am wondering if anyone has any recommendations for tools that would run on VMS 8.3 and later that would help the programmers with their editing of source code. We are using MMK to build our executables. I have no problem with the idea of just using the standard TPU or EDT editor, but I can see the value of having some sort of tools to make things easier.

We also might consider something that makes the C language code prettier by adjusting indentation and lining up the braces, etc.

One of our programmers is familiar with a product called "UltraEdit" that he says runs on Windows and transfers the edited source to the target system via FTP. I am not a big fan of this concept, but I am willing to keep an open mind.

I have used DEC's LSE editor years ago, but I don't think we will be spending the money for something like this.

Re: Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations

John Gillings — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 20:54:06 GMT

If your programmers already use UltraEdit, or similar then I'd suggest that's what they use!

Chances are their desktops are PCs. All you need do is export the source directory as a network share which can be mapped on the PC. Don't worry about copy in/copy out, edit the files directly. That opens a whole world of current, maintained products.

There's an OpenVMS product called Netbeans which may be an option. It's a Java based program development environment with clients running on PCs (or other java platforms). Sources and build procedures are performed on the OpenVMS back end.

Re: Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations

Hoff — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 23:57:55 GMT

At the "no money for tools" price point, your options are largely limited to open-source tools such as emacs or microemacs, to Gvim or MacVim or vim, or Netbeans.

These editing tools do have syntax coloring, scripting, and various development-targeted features. Netbeans is the only one of these three that's specifically customized for VMS.

Commercial IDE products with support for OpenVMS include HP's DECset LSE and eCube's NXTware Remote.

Re: Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations

ptrskg — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 06:00:59 GMT

I have been using Distributed Netbeans from HP for some years now in development of C and C++ code and I think it is a good concept. And it will also work well with your MMK build files. The big advantage, as I see it, is that you edit and manage your source code with more efficient tools on a PC Desktop.

Good luck
Peter

Re: Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations

Lucifer Megacruel — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 06:38:57 GMT

Hi,
VIM FTW ! . vim runs beautifully on VMS:). Once you get the hang of vim its the best editor out there. vim is free too .

see: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/os_vms.html

--Lucifer

Re: Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations

tsgdavid — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:13:17 GMT

Thanks for the replies.

John Gillings said:
>Chances are their desktops are PCs. All you need do is export the source directory as a network share which can be mapped on the PC.<

I assume that you are talking about using NFS or Samba? If I am not mistaken, NFS will require an NFS client to be installed on the Windows PCs. We are not currently using either Samba or NFS. Does the OPENVMS-I64-FOE license include the right to run NFS? (Maybe someone can point me at a description of what this license includes).

I am considering both Netbeans and UltraEdit. It looks like UltraEdit is very inexpensive (we only have three programmers). I am leaning a little more toward UltraEdit because it will not require anything to be installed on VMS. I do not currently have access to VMS patches and software updates. I believe that I have the stated prerequisites for Netbeans on VMS, but I am not certain about the Java and other ECO requirements.

If someone cares to comment on these requirements, here is what I have installed on Open VMS 8.3:

> prod sho prod
------------------------------------ ----------- ---------
PRODUCT KIT TYPE STATE
------------------------------------ ----------- ---------
HP I64VMS ACUXE V6.40-11P09A Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS AVAIL_MAN_BASE V8.3 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS C V7.2-1 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS CDSA V2.2-272 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS CSWB V1.7-13 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS CSWS V2.1-1 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS CSWS_PHP V1.3 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS DCE V3.2 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS DCPS V2.6 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS DECNET_PLUS V8.3 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS DWMOTIF V1.6 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS DWMOTIF_SUPPORT V8.3 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS FTAM V4.1-A Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS JAVA150 V1.5-1 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS KERBEROS V3.0-106 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS OPENVMS V8.3 Platform Installed
HP I64VMS OSAK V3.0-U Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS RTR V5.1-423 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS SMH V2.0-17 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS SSL V1.3-284 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS TCPIP V5.6-9ECO4 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS TDC_RT V2.2-107 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS VMS V8.3 Oper System Installed
HP I64VMS VMSI18N V8.3 Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS VT V2.1-K Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS WBEMCIM V2.0-A051013F Full LP Installed
HP I64VMS WCCPROXY V2.1 Full LP Installed
HP VMS AVAIL_MAN_COL V2.6-IAV Full LP Installed
------------------------------------ ----------- ---------
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Re: Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations

tsgdavid — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:02:23 GMT

OK, here is another thought that I am pursuing at the moment...

I am seriously thinking about loading CIFS (Samba) on OpenVMS 8.3. It looks like it only requires VMS with no other dependencies. It will offer other capabilities also that may be useful.

The programmer that wants to use a remote editor suggests that he can use Microsoft Visual Studio Express and edit the files by mapping to a share on VMS. I don't see any problem with this and at the moment it seems like the best solution.

Has anybody done this? Is there anything that I need to watch out for? Could there be any problems with file attributes or file versioning? Will saved files create a new version on the VMS file system, or will files simply be modified?

Thanks for your suggestions.

Dave

Re: Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations

John Gillings — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:23:22 GMT

Dave,

>UltraEdit is very inexpensive

For a PC text editor with source code colouring, maybe even cheaper is Notepad++

see: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Re: Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations

Hoff — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:19:27 GMT

Experience with this? Sorry, no. No Windows boxes.

CIFS works, but tends to be wonky when misconfigured.

You'll have to use the correct mapping for file formats and likely Stream LF or maybe Stream, and ASCII encoding.

VMS VFC sequential files won't work.

Re: Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations

Lucifer Megacruel — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 07:28:19 GMT

Hi tsgdavid,

I used to be a software engineer with Microsoft previously. I even sort of beta tested a version of VS 2010 even before the whole world sees it :). One thing you can do is add a small post/pre build script that will open an ftp session and copy it to vms. Go to Project->options or whatever. That way you need not configure anything :)

I will check with my old colleagues to see if any of them have used that used it the way you mentioned. Theoretically it should work though.

Just supplementing John here.There are other freeware editors that provides nearly the same functionality as notepad++. Notepad++ uses scintilla as the rendering component basically. So you get a family of scintilla based editors :), Scite , Notepad2 and so forth
(a) CodeBlocks :- www.codeblocks.org/
(b) Context:-http://www.contexteditor.org/
(c) Notepad2 :- http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html

Other thing you can do is roll your own, VMS does have support for the curses library also it provides SMG$ routines too. It may not very difficult to port something like FED :http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/fed/ . But that is *SOME* work. But you can use the basic data structures and just rewrite the rendering part:) .

As for me, vim is one true editor.

--Lucifer

Re: Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations

tsgdavid — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:54:39 GMT

It appears that I do not have the patches/ECOs that the CIFS or Netbeans install documents say I need, so I am abandoning the idea of installing those products on VMS (for now).

UltraEdit appears to do the job. I have downloaded a free trial. The one thing that I do not like is that it displays files in alphabetical order including the VMS version number so the user will have to be careful to edit the latest version.

Thanks, John, for the suggestion of notepad++. I actually have had this on my PC for some time and was not aware that it had an FTP plugin. When I tried it out, it had difficulties with the VMS directory syntax. I thought it might be best to update it to the current version before going forward. Now it generates an access violation whenever I connect via FTP. I am not sure what the problem is.

At the moment, UltraEdit looks like a winner unless I can get notepad++ to work.

Re: Language Sensitive Editor or C language filter recommendations

tsgdavid — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 15:25:28 GMT

UltraEdit works.

notepad++ gets an access violation immediately after issuing a "pwd" command and receives a response with the current OpenVMS working directory.

I think we will either use UltraEdit or EDT/TPU.

Thanks for all comments.

Dave