access dcl symbols from edit/tpu

[dan radke]

I wish to access dcl symbols from edit/tpu. How does one do that?

[Peter Zeiszler]

Do you mean like "Spawn, Show sym"?
Or you mean setting up macros and key bindings?

[dan radke]

The programs I am working with are not visual, they are TPU programs that perform general programming functions. They contain file paths internally that I wish to re-do as parameters collected from the execution environment.

[Hoff]

Use logical names.

[dan radke]

Let me restate this more explicitly since I rarely work in VMS - if within TPU I construct filenames that include logicals without any sort of quoting mechanism, that is, file name constructions that include components made in the working environment with "define" or "assign", they will just work. I looked all through the reference manual and there are no examples, so I never even thought to try this. Apparently, neither did the people before me, the ones who wrote these programs!

[Robert Gezelter]

Dan,

Referencing logical names will work, there is no need for special quoting mechanisms.

In fact, as an example, SYS$SYSDEVICE is a logical name that points to the boot device. There are very few places where it is actually necessary to use a device name.

For additional reading, see my series of articles on OpenVMS.org about the use of logical names (http://www.openvms.org/stories.php?story=03/03/03/4358185 ) [The URL is to the last fifth of five articles in that series; pointers to the previous articles are included).

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] neither did the people before me,
> the ones who wrote these programs!

They had read the Intro to VMS documentation,
which explains that logical names are built
into the OS, so they probably felt no need
to re-explain them in this context. As
usual, if you know the answer, it may be
obvious. If you don't, it may not be.

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/731FINAL/6489/6489pro_026.html#lognames_ch

[John Gillings]

dan,

As others have already said, logical names will be substituted into file specifications used in EVE or TPU commands according to the normal rules.

Both EVE and TPU have a vast number of built in functions which may already provide a mechanism for translating logical names or symbols directly. Explore HELP.

If it doesn't already exist, you can extend TPU with your own routines, written in the language of your choice. You write a routine call TPU$CALLUSER, and then invoke it with the CALL_USER builtin function. It's up to you to choose an interface.

Quite straight forward to build a routine to call LIB$GET_SYMBOL and/or LIB$GET_LOGICAL to return translated strings as TPU variables.