How to implement multi-line input recall?

[Jess Goodman]

I don't see how you can call the command line recall difference between INQUIRE and READ SYS$COMMAND a bug. Yes they're different, but they've always worked that way (since command recall was added).

Some command procedures I write use READ to input lots of individual parameters and I don't want them filling up my command recall buffer. On the other hand I use INQUIRE a few places where I want command recall to work, like in a procedure to execute commands on a remote node vis DECnet.

There is one behavior of INQUIRE I detest though. It's not a bug either, but it is a bug magnet! There is no way with INQUIRE to differentiate between empty input and end-of-file - they both set the symbol name to the null string. Could we get /END=label added to INQUIRE?

Also I hate it when some innocent little bit of DCL code using INQUIRE that was originally written for interactive use but is then incorrectly submitted as a batch job gets into an infinite loop without so much as an error message:

$reprompt:
$ inquire string "Prompt"
$ if (string .eqs. "") then goto reprompt
$ show symbol string
$ exit

On the other hand READ SYS$COMMAND even with /END=, when run from a batch job will actually read the next line of DCL ($ and all) in the command procedure as input. That DCL line won't execute. Now that's just wrong!

[Galen Tackett]

Jess,

> I don't see how you can call the command line recall difference between
> INQUIRE and READ SYS$COMMAND a bug.

Ah, but Mr. DCL Guy himself apparently called it a bug before I merely echoed him, as you'll see in the reply just before the one where I used the word myself. :-)

I just thought that the story about the change in VMSLICENSE.COM might be an interesting historical note.

However I have a strange idea of what's interesting. As an acquaintance long ago put it, perhaps echoing someone famous:

"Everything must be interesting, because if there were something which weren't, that alone would make it interesting."

(I believe I first heard this back around 1977 from an older denizen of the Cal State University, Hayward Computing Lab who was named Leo. He was a campus math/CS wiz who had what may have been a German accent. Also his hair was generally in disarray, but that's all the resemblance that he bore to A. Einstein.)

Regards,

Galen

[Joseph Huber_1]

The mother of programs using smg$read_composed_line was written 1988 by Hunter Goatley in Vax Macro as
HG$GET_INPUT.MAR as a replacement for LIB$GET_INPUT.
I kept it in http://wwwvms.mppmu.mpg.de/vmssig/src/mar/hg$get_input.mar

And for those not believing Vax macro will work beyond Alpha, here is a version in C:
http://wwwvms.mppmu.mpg.de/~huber/util/hg$get_input.c

Servus,

[John Abbott_2]

Jess, the best thing you can do is email dcl@hp.com your thoughts.

I've always recieved a reply from Guy that's had some thought put into it! You never know, what you ask might just get added !!

Kind Regards,
John.

[Galen Tackett]

Thanks to all for your help here. Ian's sample code showed me just how easy this was to do with SMG$READ_COMPOSED_LINE.