PCSI question

[Malleka Ramachandran]

How do I get the .PCSI file from a .PCSI$COMPRESSED file?
I am trying to install DECnet phase IV on a new Itanium box, from the CD. All I have in the kit directory on the DVD is the compressed file HP-I64VMS-DECNET_PHASE_IV-V0802--1.PCSI$COMPRESSED

[Richard Whalen · Accepted solution]

There is no need to convert the PCSI$COMPRESSED file to PCSI. PRODUCT INSTALL can handle both types.

[Volker Halle]

Malleka,

you could convert a compressed PCSI kit to an uncompressed kit with:

$ PRODUCT COPY product-name /SOURCE=device:[dir] -
/DESTINATION=device:[dir] /FORMAT=SEQUENTIAL

See the OpenVMS Alpha V7.3-2 Release Notes. This would only be necesary, if you need to install that kit on a system, whose PCSI Utility does not (yet) support compressed PCSI kits.

Compressed PCSI kits are supported are supported since OpenVMS Alpha V7.3-2 and (through PCSI patches) in V7.3 or higher.

Volker.

[Arch_Muthiah]

Malleka,

Google found this. the PCSI lead developer, Jim Krycka explained about .PCSI and .PCSI$COMPRESSED....

PCSI support for compressed kits was implemented for OpenVMS 7.3-2 and
backported to V7.2-2 through V7.3-1 via PCSI remedial kits for OpenVMS.
Use PRODUCT SHOW UTILITY to see the PCSI internal version number. A
version of V7.3-300 or greater will have the compression functionality.


Using V7.3-300 or later you can compress any existing sequential (.PCSI)
kit and install it. It does not matter what version of PCSI created
the sequential kit. Compressed kits are decompressed on-the-fly during
installation, so you do not need to explicitly decompress a compressed
kit using PRODUCT COPY before installing it. If you should have both
.PCSI and .PCSI$COMPRESSED versions of the same kit in the same source
directory, PCSI will use the compressed version by default as input.


Your suggestion to include examples of command line syntax required to
convert a sequential kit into a compressed kit and vice versa is good.
I've put this request on my list for future documentation and on-line
help.


If you take a .PCSI kit, compress it, then decompress it back to its
.PCSI form, the before and after .PCSI kits are functionally identical.
If you use the same version of the PCSI utility to perform these
operations, the two files should be identical (e.g., as reported by
$DIFFERENCES). However, it you start with a sequential kit created by
a version of PCSI that is different from the one used to compress and
decompress it, then there will be a slight difference in the kits
because the PCSI utility writes its internal version number in the kit.
This is strickly cosmetic. Actually, I'm thinking about changing this
behavior to preserve the version of PCSI that originally created the
kit which is more interesting than the version that converted it.


The reason /LOG produces different output on compression than
decompression (i.e, the PCSI-I-PKGFIL informationals) is that PRODUCT
COPY actually piggybacks on the packaging code (from PRODUCT PACKAGE)
for most conversions. The exception is the compression operation
which was newly written for V7.3-2 to bypass the packaging phase and
just do the compression of the .PCSI file. However, when using
PRODUCT COPY to convert a .PCSI$COMPRESSED file back to a .PCSI file,
the old "package" logic is still used.