topic file name in Operating System - OpenVMS

file name

Dawning Liu — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 13:36:52 GMT

I'm a Solaris admin. I create files on my Solaris for a VMS box to pick up. For file names, I use aaaaaa.nnnnnn.nnnnn, where the "a"s represent a-z, and the "n"s 0-9.
This is perfectly valid format in Solaris. I'm not sure about its validity in VMS. I have two questions.

1. what is the length limitation for file names for each part.

2. are aaaaa.123456.12345 and
aaaaa.123456.12346 treated as two different file names.

Thanks,

Dawning

Re: file name

Arch_Muthiah — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 13:50:30 GMT

Downing,

with the release of OpenVMS 7.2, all disks (with the exception of the system disk) can be either ODS-2 or ODS-5.

ODS-2 -- file names be no longer than 39 characters exclusive of the extension (which could also be up to 39 characters in length) and the "dot" separator, couldn't contain most punctuation symbols, and had to be upper case.

ODS-5 allows UNIX style filenames. Now the total file name length, including extension and separators, can be up to 236 characters and may contain any 8 bit character (except * and ?).

Archunan

Re: file name

Arch_Muthiah — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:00:13 GMT

Dawning,

If you have OpenVMS verion above 7.3-2 with ODS-5 disk, you can have your filename as aaaaa.123456.12345, but if you have openVMS 7.3-2 and not ODS-5 disk, then we can have only one dot in the right side of the file name. If we have more than one dot in the file name, it won't accept that filename.

Archunan

Re: file name

Arch_Muthiah — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:07:44 GMT

Dawning,

Sorry, you can have two dots in your filename with ods-1,ods-2, and ods5 disks.

Re: file name

Dawning Liu — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:20:29 GMT

Archunan,

Thank you for the quick replies.
You answered my first question satisfactorily. I still have some confusion on the 2nd question though. I asked the question because when the VMS box picked up files via ftp from my Solaris, users on VMS didnâ t see all the files I saw on my Solaris. Itâ s been puzzled me for a long time. I donâ t know whether the files were dropped, not picked up at all, or one file was overwritten by another. For example, I have two files on my Solaris, aaaaa.123456.12345 and aaaa.123456.12346. What do you expect to see on the VMS after ftp transfer?

Thanks a lot.

Dawning

Re: file name

Arch_Muthiah — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:36:26 GMT

Dawning,

I just checked,

probaly after you trnsfer your two files, you can see two files in VMS, but with the same name with difft version, such as
your first file (aaaaa.123456.12345) will be as aaaaa.123456;1
and the IInd file (aaaaa.123456.12346) will be as aaaaa.123456;2

Archunan

Re: file name

Dawning Liu — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:51:39 GMT

Great!
Thank you very much Archunan.

Dawning

Re: file name

Hein van den Heuvel — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 15:15:36 GMT

Archunan Muthiah>> If we have more than one dot in the file name, it won't accept that filename.

Not so fast...

There is a special case, where the second dot is treated as an alternative for the semicolon version seperator. Witness
(7.2-1, parse style traditional, ods2 )

$ del tmp.*.*
$ copy/log nl: tmp.123456.12345
%COPY-S-COPIED, NL: copied to TMP.123456;12345
# copy/log nl: tmp.123456.12346
%COPY-S-COPIED, NL: copied to TMP.123456;12346
$

Of course this only works when that version part actually looks like a version number.
If will be stored as an INTEGER in the directory record, not as a string.

If you put a string there, specific VMS versions may get somewhat confused:

$ copy/log nl: tmp.123456.a5
%COPY-E-OPENOUT, error opening TMP^.123456.A5;
as output
-RMS-E-CRE, ACP file create failed
-SYSTEM-W-BADFILEVER, bad file version number

See how the first dot is escaped and picked up as part of the name part of the filename?

But now...

$ copy tmp.tmp;1 tmp.123456.a5
%COPY-E-OPENOUT, error opening EISNER$DRA3:[DECUSERVE_USER.HEIN]TMP^.123456.A5;1
as output
-RMS-E-CRE, ACP file create failed
-SYSTEM-W-BADFILEVER, bad file version number

but but but... that ;1 does not look like a bad version number at all?!

:-)

Hein.

Re: file name

Jan van den Ende — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 15:25:26 GMT

Dawning,

some more pertinent info on the 3rd part of your suggested filename.

For clarity's sake, I will re-phrase your example filename as aaaaaa.bbbbbb.nnnnnn

You will most probably have to deal with ODS-2

Both aaaaaa and bbbbbb can be alphabumeric, 0 - 39 chars. Valid chars: letters, digits, $ (dollar sign), and _ (underscore).
Upper- and lowercase are treated equal ("caseblind").

nnnnnn is an INTEGER, 1 - 32767

The second dot in the syntax is always presented as ; (semicolon), specifying a dot is treated as if semicolon was specified.

Normally, the nnnnn processing is automatic: unless explicitly specified, the highest number is used. In creating (inc. COPY etc.) the next higher number is generated.
Multiple versions of the file can (and usually DO) exist. NO fear you accidentily overwrite the already existing file, you just generate the next version.
Trying to explicitly CREATE (or copy to) an existing file version will result in a (explanatory) error message. (unless using the special qualifier /OVERLAY to force it, in which case the original file already HAS to exist)

Accessing the files via FTP will work in general, also using your syntax. Just as long as nnnnn does not exceed 32767 (2^15 -1)

hth

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: file name

Dawning Liu — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 17:46:18 GMT

Thank you all for the answers.

Dawning