Error when appending files on VMS

[Hein van den Heuvel · Accepted solution]

Rob,
Can you do a quick test where you define APPS just pointing to that first directory alone, not the searchlist?

Dave wrote>> Hi Rob,
Note that RENAME cannot be used when moving files between devices. (You mentioned that your files were on 4 different devices).

Good point Dave. We only learned about the searchlist after suggesting the rename.
The rename will fail if the file is not found in the first directory in the list.

Dave>> (Note rename does not move any data, is simply modifies the INDEXF.SYS file (as I understand it))

Close. Rename does even less work. It removes the old directory entry and inserts a new one... in the first directory in the searchlist if a searchlist is in play

The target file header in INDEXF.SYS is only updated if the directory backlink needs to be update.

Hein.

[RobCox]

Hein,
I redefined the logical to point to one disk only and got the same error result - "%APPEND-W-NOTCMPLT"

$ set ver
$ set def traf_anal_extract:[000000]
$ define/proc application_traf_anal_data APP_TRAF_DAT:[TRAF_ANAL_DATA1]
$ append/log/new application_traf_anal_data:*gsm3*.dat/sin="02-jul-2010" -
/before="03-jul-2010" t.t

But as I said, if I remove both the "/sin" and "/bef" switches, the append command works. Really strange.

[John McL]

Rob, I've seen other problems with wildcard lookups on search lists. IIRC it was a double listing of certain files (or maybe just the last file).

I put it down to having a wildcard context on the search list and a wildcard context on the filename. I have a vague suspicion that it might be a problem of access sequence (e.g. files in directories further along the search list having names that are alphabetically earlier than file names found further back up the search list).

I've seen the problem on Alpha under VMS v8.3 and someone reported it to HP for me.

I can't be sure that it's the same kind of problem but this path might be worth exploring.

In the meantime, have you tried the COPY command with wildcard input file names and a single output file (without ;) ?

[RobCox]

John
The copy was a good suggestion. I tried it and it worked, or so I thought. Even though the copy produced the resultant file, the very last system message indicates that 'some file' was not completely copied. It is a similar error to the Append error. See the attachment.

[John McL]

Rob,

1. How many files should have been copied in the test that you include just above? I suggest a check with $ DIR/CREATED/MODIFIED (and your time qualifiers) to get a list of files that *should* be processed.

2. Are all the files okay, with no relevant errors from ANALYZE/DISK and ANALYZE/RMS ?

3. The output from HELP/MESSAGE NOTCMPLT says

Facility: Shared by several facilities

Explanation: A copy operation began but did not finish.

User Action: Take action based on the accompanying OpenVMS RMS file system message. Use the DCL command TYPE or DUMP to verify the contents of the output file, and delete the output file before reentering the command.

So where's the accompanying message, HP?

4. I notice that the last file in your example copied just 272 records. Was this the correct size of the last file? It wasn't open by some other process at the same time was it?

5. Do you get a different result if you fully specify the time (e.g. /SINCE="1-Jul-2010 00:00"/BEFORE="2-Jul-2010 00:00" ?

There's got to be a reason for this odd behaviour ...