HP Basic on Open VMS on VAX and Alpha

[Richard Glyn-Jones]

Using Basic on VAX to open a file with an illegal file name I get ERR 2 ILLFILMAN, the same program on the Alpha I get ERR 162 CANOPEFIL. Can anyone explain why I get a different error.

[Hein van den Heuvel]

So what is the filespec?
Anything 'funny' about the spec?
Is it expected to work?

What is the detail status (RMS -STS and RMS -STV), if you can get that?

ods-2 vs ods-5 ?

hth,
Hein.

[Richard Glyn-Jones]

Thanks for the quick response.
The original piece of cade was to trap any illegal fiel name entered by a User ( I used in this test filename Test.dat.dat.) When run on the VAX the error handler retunr ERR 2 and hence the ILLFILMAN. On the Alpha the error returned is ERR 162 RMS-E-CRE ACP file create failed.

[John Abbott_2]

The file spec mentioned is not legal on an ods-2 volume, which I suspect you're using.

J.

[Richard Glyn-Jones]

Thanks, I've looked at both Vax and Alpha and both disk structures are ODS-2.

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] both disk structures are ODS-2.

Ok, but the Basic RTL on a VAX has no need
to deal with an OSD5 extended file name,
while the Basic RTL on a non-VAX may need to
deal with one, so it's not very amazing that
one would give a different status code than
the other for an ODS5-legal name. On a VAX,
a name like that is always illegal, while on
a non-VAX, its validity depends on the
structure level of the device, so different
code may be complaining.

[Richard Glyn-Jones]

Thanks for all the info. I've been looking at the programs that I am transferring from VAX to Alpha and have found something which might help you with helping me. In the Program the User starts by entering a file name, or a db class name (indicates which db file will open). If you select the class first it opens a default file name, however if you select a file first the User has then to select a class. On the VAX this works ok and if the User put in either an illegal file name or class name then an appropriate error message is displayed and the User can cycle through these two commands putting in legal and illegal values, each occurence is handled correct by the error handler. On the Alpha however after an illegal file name which is handled correctly any subsequent legal entry produces an ERR 194 Non Basic.
I believe in one occurance the RMSSTATUS status was 8 but I can't find out what this means. I realy appreciate the help as I'm lost at the moment.

[Steven Schweda]

Sounds like a (potentially) actual program
bug, which needs to be removed the
old-fashioned way. Knowing nothing, I'd guess
that after the troublesome error, something
is not being reset properly for the next pass
through the code. It's possible that on the
Alpha, something got optimized away, which
had been helping you out on the VAX.

It could be some Basic defect, too, of
course, but proving that involves about the
same steps as finding the problem if it's
yours.

I don't know what "ERR 194 Non Basic" is
trying to say, but if it's decimal:

alp $ exit 194
%SYSTEM-E-GPTFULL, global page table is full

Perhaps a little AUTOGEN action is in order
on the new system? (Seems unlikely.)

[Richard Glyn-Jones]

Thanks I've tried most thing now and my problem seems to hinge around solving what ERR 194 means and how I translate the status from either VMSSTATUS or RMSSTATUS into something I can understand. Is there any documentation that lists these codes or sample code that can be used to translate them

[Ian Miller.]

Values from VMSTATUS or RMSSTATUS can be simply translated using the exit command at a dcl prompt

$ exit 194
%SYSTEM-E-GPTFULL, global page table is full