Converting VMS Internal Date Fmt to Date Strings in DCL

[Jack Trachtman]

I'm writing a DCL script to access Authorize records from SYSUAF.DAT. (Note: this will be read-only.) I can easily access a record via READ/KEY=username. There are a number of fields in the file that are formated as VMS 8-byte date format (either as absolute dates or as delta dates).

Is there any way within DCL to convert these to their sring equivalents (either "dd-mmm-yyyy hh:mm:ss" or "d hh:mm:ss" as appropriate)?

[Jon Pinkley]

See Hein's response dated Aug 22, 2007 21:46:05 GMT in the following thread for an example of getting last login date from UAF.

The same technique works for any other binary date.

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1155146

Jon

[John Gillings · Accepted solution]

Jack,

It's buried in amongst Hein's code. The magic incantation is

$ time_string=F$FAO("!%D",F$CVUI(32,32,F$FAO("!AD",8,binary_time)))

where binary_time is a symbol containing a string with the 8 byte binary time value.

Strictly speaking the sequence is undocumented and unsupported. It depends on an interaction between the implementation of strings in DCL and the "blindness" of F$FAO passing arguments to SYS$FAO.

On the other hand, someone would have to try pretty hard to break it, without breaking a whole bunch of supported stuff...

[Robert Atkinson]

Jack, I'd recommend GETUAI (http://vms.process.com/scripts/fileserv/fileserv.com?GETUAI) which is a command line tool to retreive UAF information into symbols.

You can still read down SYSUAF.DAT to get the username, but it's much easier to return information using the utility.

Example:

$START:
$ DEFINE SYS$OUTPUT SYS$TEMP:UAFMAN_CPL_'PRCPID'.TMP
$ UAF SHOW */BRIEF
$ DEASS SYS$OUTPUT
$ !
$ OPEN /WRITE OUTFILE UAFMAN$TEMP:UAFMAN_CPL_REPORT.TMP
$ OPEN /READ INFILE SYS$TEMP:UAFMAN_CPL_'PRCPID'.TMP
$ READ /END=ERROR INFILE DUMMY ! Dump headers
$ READ /END=ERROR INFILE DUMMY ! Dump headers
$ !
$LOOP:
$ READ /END=END_LOOP INFILE INDATA
$ !
$ USER = F$EDIT(F$EXT(21,15,INDATA),"TRIM")
$ !
$ GETUAI 'USER' /UIC=UIC
$ !
$ IF F$EXT(0,4,UIC) .EQS. "[250" .OR. F$EXT(0,4,UIC) .EQS. "[310"
$ THEN
$ ELSE
$ GOTO LOOP
$ ENDIF
$ !
$ GETUAI 'USER' /PWLIFE=PWDLIFE /OWNER=OWNER /ACCOUNT=ACCOUNT
$ !
$ IF PWDLIFE .NES. " 60 00:00:00.00"
$ THEN
$ WS "%UCPL-I-PWLIFE, User ''USER' has a password life of ''PWDLIFE', owner ''OWNER', group ''ACCOUNT'"
$ WRITE OUTFILE "%UCPL-I-PWLIFE, User ''USER' has a password life of ''PWDLIFE', owner ''OWNER', group ''ACCOUNT'"
$ ENDIF
$ !
$ GOTO LOOP
$ !

[Jack Trachtman]

Thanks - this gives me what I need.

I read about the $FAO system service & read the threads pointed to in the answer. Makes sense.