topic Re: /BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING in Operating System - OpenVMS

/BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING

BoyeDav — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 11:17:22 GMT

The following used to work, but for some reason it no longer generates any output. If I remove the /BEFORE portion, it gives me everything from the "since" date, but I can't seem to use /BEFORE to specify an end time:

ACCOUNTING /TYPE=PRINT /SUMMARY=USER /REPORT=(PAGES,RECORDS) /sin=01-sep-2006/before=01-oct-2006/output=disk$d:[users.david]userssep2006.lis

What am I missing?

TIA!

Re: /BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING

Gregg Parmentier — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 11:25:50 GMT

Are you sure you haven't started a new accounting file recently? If the file only goes back to October 3rd like mine does, it will look like /before isn't working.

Re: /BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING

Volker Halle — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 11:52:37 GMT

BoyeDav,

welcome to the OpenVMS ITRC forum.

I've tried your command on an OpenVMS Alpha V8.2 system and it seems to work correctly.

I would suggest, that you just try:

$ ACC/TYPE=PRINT/SINCE=1-SEP-2006 and check, whether any print accounting records are shown from SEP-2006.

If so, add the /BEFORE=1-OCT-2006 and check again.

Volker.

Re: /BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING

BoyeDav — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 11:54:58 GMT

$ ACC/TYPE=PRINT/SINCE=1-SEP-2006 works fine. It breaks when I add the /before=01-oct-2006

Re: /BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING

Volker Halle — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 11:56:33 GMT

Which VMS version and architecture ?

Volker.

Re: /BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING

Volker Halle — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 11:59:06 GMT

Could there be a record in ACCOUNTNG.DAT with a bad 'future' date ? Would this stop ACC from scanning further records ?

Try /BEFORE=01-OCT-9999

Volker.

Re: /BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING

BoyeDav — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 12:06:43 GMT

V7.3-2

I think I'm not getting any accounting data from the month of September. If I leave of /before and change the /since dates forward or backward from 0ct-1, the print counts decrease as I go forward, but do not change as I go backward.

I'm a bit new to OpenVMS, so forgive my naivety. Would there be a separate log/file in which the September accounting data might be stored?

Re: /BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING

Gregg Parmentier — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 12:18:26 GMT

Depending upon how you do your startup, you may create a new accounting file at every reboot. Normally the accountng.dat file is in sys$manager.

Re: /BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING

Volker Halle — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 12:31:07 GMT

To find out, when the current accounting file has been created, use:

$ ACC/TYPE=FILE/FULL

You should see an 'ACCOUNTING FILE backward pointer' entry including the full name of the previous file. The Finish Time will tell you the time the new (=current) accounting file has been created.

Some system managers create a new accounting file every month or so. You would need to find the old file. It may be present as SYS$MANAGER:ACCOUNTNG.DAT;-1 or may have been copied somewhere else.

Volker.

Re: /BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING

BoyeDav — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 12:32:41 GMT

I think that's it. It looks like the accounting.dat file is being cycled at the end of each month. Is there a way to tell specify a different accounting file? I looked in help, but none of the options appeared to address that, although perhaps I'm misunderstanding.

Re: /BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING

Volker Halle — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 12:36:14 GMT

Sure, specify the accounting file name as the first parameter on the ACC command line:

$ ACC/whatever-qualifiers-you-like dev:[dir]accountng.dat;n

See $ HELP ACC Usage_Summary

Volker.

Re: /BEFORE no longer working with ACCOUNTING

BoyeDav — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 12:56:16 GMT

excellent. I was so busy looking at the options that I missed the parameter to specify the accounting file. Thanks!